Hiraga no Monogatari
by Nederbird
Summary: Six years after Tabitha's rescue, Saito returns to Tristain after a long journey, only to find himself ennobled and granted his own land. Now he must take on the role of the class he despises so and overcome new challenges with his dignity intact.
1. The Lone Mountaineer

**Finally, after exactly a year since I began writing this, I publish the first five chapters of a story I intend to make into something much longer. However, there's just something I'd like to enlighten all of you about, and that's the fact that this story contains OCs, several of the. One of them is even the deuteragonist, so if you're vehemently opposed to OCs, you should probably stop reading right now. Everybody else, I hope you'll have a good time reading this. :)**

* * *

**CHAPTER ONE:**** THE LONE MOUNTAINEER**

A cloaked figure trudged through the snow, alone, teeth hacking. His head and shoulders were covered in snow and on his back hung a sword of seemingly poor quality. The snowflakes were big and their fall heavy. He had no doubt that should he not find any warm shelter soon, he'd freeze to death.

Lifting his head, averting them from the snow covered ground, he looked ahead: the ground was gleaming in a magnificent white, the snowflakes glittering in as they were sprayed with the rays of the Sun. Tall spruces surrounded him, their green branches covered with snow, creating an everwhite landscape broken only by the majestic blue of the mountain peeks that towered in the horizons of every direction. The sky was cloudy, albeit pocketed with holes, allowing the Sun's warm glow to shine through.

Up ahead the man noticed a dent in the mountainside: a cave perhaps? He made its way to it, hurrying his pace. He could hear the muffled crunching of snowflakes as he aggressively trudged towards the indentation, hoping to find a decent place to stay for the first time in many nights. Decent in that regard that mostly he has been forced to sleep under trees in the past week, ever since he'd made his decision to cross this accursed mountain range.

The closer he came, the deeper the indentation seemed and so a smile began to creep further and further across his face for every step he took. When finally there his hopes were confirmed: it really was a cave. While venturing into it he remained vigilant, his hand tensed and ready to draw his sword at any time, for who knows if this might be the lair of a bear or mountain lion? Tensing up as he approached the dark, he began to slowly move his hand up towards his sword's hilt. There was no denying the he was afraid, as the gift he'd once been blessed with was now naught but a memory: a memory of a past he coupled with joy. Now however, there was none of it, at least not to the same degree.

Drawing his sword to ease calm his nerves, he proceeded cautiously into the dark, he didn't want to camp in a cave without knowing what it held. Getting eaten in the middle of the night had never really been his idea of a worthy death. Suddenly, there was a deep clang and he gasped, hastily pulling back a few metres as he was startled. Standing there for a while, completely still, he waited for something to jump at him, preparing himself for the inevitable attack. But none came; the only sound to be heard was that of his own, heavy breaths.

A deafening silence.

Then the sword spoke, the metallic tone of its voice clear as ever.

"Ugh… that hurt, you know?"

The wanderer let out a sigh of relief, realizing that the clang had only been that of his sword hitting the stony wall of the cave, concluding that it didn't go much deeper than this; he smiled contently and went to seat himself at the wall of the cave.

"Heh… sorry about that." he apologized, grinning sheepishly as he returned his sword to its sheath, which he in turn relieved his shoulder of and leaned against the wall. Sitting down beside it, he pulled back the hood and shook his head, letting the fresh mountain air flow into his scruffy, raven black hair. His features were young, barely adult. He was still smiling, relishing in the thought of spending a night's sleep with a solid roof over his head.

"So what do you think Del? Won't it be nice not having to go to sleep without risking yourself to be buried in snow for once?" he asked his sword, smiling as he did.

"Aye, this cursed cold's killing me. Had it just been a little colder I think I'd have been cut in half by now," it replied, now in an equally content, if yet slightly annoyed tone.

"Huh? Why?"

"At extremely cold temperatures, steel becomes as brittle as clay and as effective a weapon as toothpicks."

"Eeh… I had no idea."

"You better believe me. I've been around for I don't know how long now, and in that time I've seen countless battles were swords have been shattered to pieces from striking mere anoraks. The army was beaten by a bunch of Snowfolks wielding crude spears with flint edges! Up there in the freezing north, we're practically useless." the sword, known as Derflinger, finished.

"I see," he said, thinking for a moment about what it'd said. "Then I guess you'd like to get warm too?" he asked, his smile having returned.

"Of course I do! In fact, I was just about to ask you when you'd start making a fire." the sword cried, annoyed at the cold he'd been forced to endure for days now. The man just laughed.

"Ok ok, I'll go get some wood now, but I'll take you with me," A mischievous grin formed on his face as he finished the sentence.

"What? Out there again? Into the cold? You can't be serious!"

"Come on now." He took Der, hanging him back over his shoulder. "There won't be any fire if I get eaten by a lion, you know." Derflinger just sighed, resigning himself to his predicament as he was once again enveloped by the chilly breeze. Alas, the sheath didn't provide him with much protection against the elements.

* * *

The fire was cracking under the cave ceiling, lightening up the walls, painting them in a warm, yellow colour. Just above the flames' reach hung a fir branch, suspended from the left hand of the young sword wielder. He tipped it a little to the left, the to the right, then to the left again and continued in the same way to tip it back and forth till he assumed it to be dry enough, then placed in on a small stack of branches of the same species of tree. The man then removed his cloak, lay down the stack and covered himself with said cloak, using it as a blanket. Derflinger hung above the fire, held up by two Y-shaped sticks on each end, enjoying the warmth that the flames provided him as they licked his body.

"This sure brings back memories, doesn't it, partner?" Derf asked, and let out a lusty sigh as a flame tickled his side.

"Ha? What does?"

"I mean this. You sleeping on the floor on a stack of dried vegetation and me leaning to the wall right beside you… or skip the last part, but it sure does remind me of old times," it mused.

"Hmm…" the man sat up and thought a bit on that one before getting what his metallic companion was referring to. "Oh, that! Haha, yeah… it sure does. Damn, that was a long time ago…" he said, the smile having returned to his face. Although it slowly faded as his mind got itself lost deep within its own archives.

"Oi, Saito," Derf tried to gain his masters attention, who was pulled out of the flashback he was experiencing and turned his head to the talking weapon.

"Hm, what is it?"

"I was just wondering… don't you ever miss your old friends, or those times you shared them with?" The wanderer, Saito, opened his mouth to answer, but stopped as he didn't really know what to say. He thought on it for a bit, thinking about stuff that hadn't entered his mind for weeks.

"Well… now that you're saying it, yeah, I do. I think I really do, but I haven't given it much thought. At least not these past few days, I guess trying to survive out her in this wilderness doesn't give me much time to think about that."

"Ah, I see… and what about that girl of yours?"

"Louise?"

"Aye," Derf replied curtly. Saito thought about it for a bit, but not for long.

"I don't know, Derf. I honestly don't know. I guess I do sometimes, but she's got that other guy now that she's all over and every time I thought they were fooling around to much she just came with the 'He's my familiar, so it's only natural' bullshit again. It always comes to mind when I think of her, so I try not to," he answered, his face assuming a somewhat bitter look.

Derf just sighed.

"But you still love her, don't you?" This earned him an angry look from his master, but Saito's face returned to its previous neutral, somewhat bewildered expression, and he sighed.

"Yeah, I do. Sometimes I get this feeling that I want someone… want her to be with me again, like it used to be, and then I just feel this sting in my heart." He paused, thinking over his words. "Aye, Derf… I really miss her, a lot. But I've received this mandate, a mission from the Queen to collect all the artefacts in this world that come from mine and I don't want to let her down."

"Knight's dilemma, eh? Your honour or your love. Heh, if I remember it right you've always scoffed at honour and done what you think is right. So I'm not falling for that one."

The enchanted sword just tsked at his master predicament.

"Well, if you miss her so much, why don't you just go back to her? You've come here out of your own free will, not much more is needed for you to return, comrade."

"Like I said, she's all over her new little familiar again, so what need is there for me there?" he cut back, now irritated. "If she's so close to that guy then what would she need me for? Besides, now he's her Gandalfr, not me. I can't protect her anymore, not like I could before, not enough, but he can, that's his job now and that's even more of a reason for why I'm not needed. And if she's just going to ignore me and run around whipping me and blowing me up because I happen to catch HER getting all cosy with him, then she can kiss my ass goodbye, 'cause I don't need that!" Saito was practically fuming by this time.

"Oi, oi! Calm down, partner! If you're were going to steam like that from the start you could've done so before instead going through all the work to make this fire. You're through that now, so keep cool, ok?" Saito just sighed.

"It's just… it's just… I don't know. She was fooling around with him right before my eyes and even ADMITTED to having an affair with him and yet I still love her. She said she loved him but she's never said anything like that to me, while I've told her the same thing like a hundred times. And now I still feel that empty feeling because she's not around, I… I just don't know what to think anymore, Derf." He hung his head low, gazing at the spruce branches on which he was sitting. "I mean, you saw it too, right? You were even in the room once." There was a pause, the silence only being disturbed by the cracking fire.

"Well… that was once and it was an accident but… she seemed a little too agreeable, yes…"

"You see, that's what I meant. Then when I caught her all sprawled over him and she admitted to have had a relationship with him behind my back, that was it, I didn't want anymore of it. They're probably all happy now, together, so there's no need for me to return and disturb their happy little life. I'm not going back." Saito said with finality. Derf just mumbled in agreement over it, having decided to press the matter no further. There was an awkward silence between the two.

"Derf."

"Aye?"

"What's the name of that guy again, I forgot."

Err… Jean, I think."

"Ah, yeah… that was it," Saito said, then fell asleep.

…

"I hope he doesn't snore again," Derf muttered to himself.


	2. Ridden by the Mare

**CHAPTER TWO: ****RIDDEN BY THE MARE**

_Three years earlier_

"You're no longer a Gandalfr, you're just a normal human. Will you be alright?" Derf asked, showing some concern for once.

"It doesn't matter if I'm not. Louise is calling me, I can tell!" Saito replied. With his unwavering determination, he set off towards the explosions he'd heard earlier.

"Your life's all covered in trouble. Well, those who believe shall be rewarded, right?"

"Shut up! I'm counting on you in the case of an emergency, buddy." He heard another set of explosions and quickened his pace, hoping to reach his beloved before she'd be done any harm.

As he made his way through the shrubbery he could pick up Louise's voice and that of another woman, although he didn't hear what they said, it didn't sound friendly.

Ahead of him he saw a line of bushes between some trees beyond which he thought the voices came from. As he ran towards it, he could hear Louise cry out: "…only you!"

He leapt, dashing forth in between two bushes and somersaulting as he landed. At once drawing his sword when coming to his feet he thrust his sword into the chest of a large summoned black wolf, which instantly evaporated in a puff of bluish pink smoke.

Looking ahead he caught sight of Louise standing in the middle of a blue glowing pentagram etched into the ground, performing some spell. In front of her hovered a swirling green orb, something Saito had a faint memory of.

_Wait a minute… isn't that…_

Out of the orb flew a boy no older than himself right into Louise, their lips connecting as his head crashed into hers. They both fell to the ground, him landing on top of her. Then when he looked up eyes shot wide open, he began to scream in pain, clutching his right hand's joint as the hand began to glow in a brilliant bluish white. After about ten seconds it finally stopped and the boy fell to his knees, still clutching the joint.

Then Saito heard a woman laugh and caught sight of one to his right, standing among a pack of black wolves.

"Interesting, so now she's got a new one, eh? Oh well, doesn't matter, now that she's knocked out I'll be spared the effort of taking her by force." she thought out loud. Instantly, Saito realized what she was referring to. The pentagram, the orb, the fellow on the ground… she'd attempted to resummon Saito as her familiar, but had got another guy instead and now it was irreversible. As he realized that, the anger started to boil inside him, anger which he directed at the woman standing before Louise as she started to speak. "Thanks, boy. You saved me a lot of effort."

Saito roared in anger as he lashed out against the wolves around the woman, reducing two to hippie smoke with one swift lash, taking her completely by surprise. Then he darted past her right into another one, thrusting his blades into its skull, evaporating that one as well. As the wolves then charged him from all sides, he brought Derf over his head, twirling him around like a pencil and bringing him down on the incoming feral canine to his right. He then did a full spin to the right, handing Derflinger over to the forces of centrifugation as he flew through the air and sliced six wolves in half. Seeing two wolves close in on him, he brought the weapon up, twirled it and brought it down on the one dead ahead of him, then gripping the hilt with his left hand and lashing out with it to the left and popping the other one into smoke.

The guy sitting in the middle of the clearing witnessed it all unfurl right before him: him flying through some vortex and out some green blob, kissing a girl while faceplanting her, having his hand glow and runes appear on it, seeing a modern samurai leap out of the bushes and unleash havoc on a pack of wolves with glowing runes on their foreheads and… then he passed out.

And as he passed out, two wolves managed to catch Saito from behind, pinning him to the ground like a ragdoll. Another one bit his arm in which he held Derf and started to tear it off of him. As the other wolves overwhelmed him and started ripping and clawing up his flesh, a big boom was hear accompanied by a blinding flash of light. When he opened his eyes, he saw the woman departing on what looked like a manta just when he was turned over by a crying Louise, tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. His back and arm hurting like hell.

"Idiot!" she yelled as she hit him on his chest, although, most people would rather have it classed as a nudge. "Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! You could've gotten yourself killed!"

"I- I wanted to protect you, Louise… I didn't want you to get hurt."

"You idiot… you didn't need to…"

"Of course I needed, I lo-"

"No Saito," she protested and shook her head. "I've got a another familiar now, a new familiar. He'll protect me now, so I dwon't be needing you." Her tears and the redness of her cheeks had all but disappeared now, her expression neutral.

"W-… what?"

"I don't need you anymore, Saito. Goodbye." She said, stood up and walked over the guy lying on the ground. Helping him up they walked away, out of the forest, arms linked.

"No, wait… Louise, wait! Wait! Don't leave me here! Wait! No! NO!" He felt his energy waning, life escaping from his body as they vanished into the darkness of the forest. As his sight became dulled, he gathered all the energy left in his body for one, final call.

"LOUISE!"

* * *

He shot up from the pile of fir branches, breathing fast. He looked around him to see the dark walls of the cave, the twilight sky of dawn outside, the smouldering pile of ash before him with Derflinger in the middle and his sheath leaned to the side of the wall. He realized it had only been a dream, a nightmare, and that he was back in the cave in the mountain range that separated Germania from the eastern lands of elves and horsemen. Derf below started to stir and then said to him.

"Damn good luck you dreamt whatever you did! Hadn't it been for your spasmodic legs I'd still been freezing up on those stupid sticks."

* * *

A few hours later they were both on their way again, trudging over the mountain. Saito checked his position with a compassthat hung from his neck and looked over at the eastern horizon, where he could see three tall mountain peaks. As he started to wade towards them he called out to the sword on his back.

"Oi, Derf."

"Aye, what is it now?"

"You remember what we were talking about last night?"

"Aye?"

"Promise me never to bring that up again."


	3. Le Retour

**For those of you who don't know, "Le Retour" is French and means "The Return".**

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE: LE RETOUR**

_T__hree years later…_

Saito sat in a carriage, Derflinger on his lap, looking out over the plains of Tristain. He was en route to a castle allotted to him by the Crown along with a big piece of land after he'd been elevated to Baron the previous day. Sitting there, he thought about all times he'd spent at the magic academy, getting lost in nostalgic memories of times past. He'd come here to this place at 17 years of age, then merely a Japanese high school student with no merits. Now he was Baron Saito de Hiraga: the former plebeian who'd risen to the rank of nobility. He was now 23 years old, cherished by the people as a hero, envied by the nobles for his royal ties and feared by Tristain's enemies as the Rider of the Green Dragon. Never could he have imagined that one day he'd be what he was now. Having gone from being a nobody to become a national role model, he felt like he was king of the world.

Yet all was not well in his heart.

Opposite to him sat Malicorne, his old fellow knight, who didn't seem to have gotten any smaller. He on the other hand, was all smiles. Having spent most of his past years in Gallia after being forced to switch school by his parents, he'd missed practically everything having to do with Saito and the academy. For some reason, even though they never knew each other that well, they kept some sort of contact through letters, though the corpulent noble never learnt anything about him and Louise other than "It's going fine" or "She's mad at me again". Curious as to what had happened with his old friend, he couldn't keep quiet for long.

"It's been a long time, hasn't it, Saito?" Saito merely hummed in agreement. "So let's hear it, how's it been while I've been away? Did you and Louise get it together?" This pulled Saito back into reality.

"Eh, Louise?" he asked in confusion, Malicorne nodding. "Hm… nah, never came anything out of it."

"Eeeh! Why? What happened?" Saito was about to tell him to shut up when it hit him that due to Malicorne's absence, he had barely heard from Louise's new familiar, probably even forgotten about him a long time ago. Since he was sure that Malicorne wouldn't dare to go and tell on him (for to various reasons), he decided that for once, he'd tell the whole story. He sighed, and began to tell the story.

"Err, well… do you remember this other weird guy, Jean?" Mal shook his head. "Okay, I'll start from point A then." Malicorne leaned forward.

"It all started in Albion I think, we were there to find the "fairy" that'd saved my life, you remember the half-elf, Tiffania?"

"Haha, of course, who couldn't? The one with those huge breasts, right?"

"Hah, yeah, that one. Well anyway, we found her somewhere in a forest south of South Gotha and decided to stay at her place for the night. You can guess what happened when Louise saw exactly what Tifa had."

"Boom?"

"Thankfully not, but close enough. But, she did get pissed like hell, saying things like "It's no wonder you came back with THOSE around" or something like that."

"So… was that all?" Mal asked surprised.

"No… she started groping Tifa's breasts." Saying that, he noticed Malicorne starting to sweat, his face getting redder and redder.

"She was all like "How can you be dangling such malicious objects?" and "They must surely be things that transform into boobs" or "Real you say? I think I'm going to have to find that out for myself!" Mal was literally steaming by this point, loosening his collar to get some air to his lungs. "You okay, Mal?" The round noble shook his head in response.

"One question," he said.

"Shoot."

"How the hell did you survive that?" the excited adolescent asked, panting heavily between the words.

"Barely, I almost got a stroke from when she said that last thing," he said as he remembered the event, blood trickling out of his nose. "I got such a nosebleed that Agnes worried that I would die from acute blood loss."

"I can imagine!"

"Aye. Well, I knew I had to intervene before she'd go too far, so I separated the two and told her to lay it off and then she got all pissed and ran off into the forest." Fortunately, this calmed Malicorne down before he'd go into cardiac arrest, though he was still panting. "Oi, you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry," he assured, trying to regain his breath. Then, gesturing, he said: "Carry on."

"As I said, she got all mad and ran off into the forest, probably thinking that I'd had a secret relationship with Tifa or something. We decided to leave her alone this time, but naturally we couldn't help to worry, so Siesta went out to look for her and bring her back. Albion was a dangerous place then, after all." Mal nodded to show that he followed.

"She came back unharmed, I hope." Saito just shook his head.

"Unfortunately, that's where all the bad things started to happen."

"Oh…"

"We were waiting for them to return when I suddenly heard Louise scream, or sensed, I don't really know, as I seemed to be the only one to notice. I ran out of the house in the direction that I thought she and Siesta were, leaving Agnes to watch over Tifa."

"Wait, you knew where to go?" Saito frowned made a half-smile, tipping his hand from side to side in a gesture of uncertainty.

"Not really, I was probably just running around wildly till I heard a series of explosion and set off in the direction of those sounds. But still, I had this feeling in me, this sense that she was calling for me, and I think I relied on that a lot."

"So you mean that… in a way, you were still her familiar? Saito was just about to reply to Malicorne's question when Derflinger jutted out from his sheath, cutting him off.

"His powers were all gone, so no, he wasn't. But there's no doubt that a fragment of that magical bond still remained within him and no wonder, considering how close the two were. You know, this one time, they even ma-" There, Derflinger's ramble was promptly cut off before it could begin, as Saito forcefully smacked the talkative blade back into its place, keeping him there with a steady grip.

"Don't listen to him, he's got this stupid tendency to burst out random crap about everything," he advised the person across from him, blushing slightly.

"Err… sure," But it as already too late, and as could be seen from his disturbed facial expression, his fantasy was already occupied with scenes about the familiar and his master. To this, Saito sighed in defeat.

"You still want to hear the story?" Malicorne snapped out of his state, confused for a moment, but soon nodded sharply.

"So I kept hearing these explosions and ran like crazy towards them. When I finally found her, all her clothes were like ripped and torn, Siesta lay unconscious on the ground and they were surrounded by some bizarre feral wolves. Wolves like I've never seen before."

"Probably magically summoned ones, Fenrir wolves," Malicorne concluded.

"Yeah, probably, as they puffed into pink clouds of smoke whenever I struck them with Derf," he said, patting the sword on his lap. "I think I went into some kind of frenzy there, as I don't remember anything after that but rage," he said, unsure on how to continue. The sword in his lap started shaking and Saito released his grip to let the intelligent bland out of its sheath.

"If anything, you were like a completely different person. You should have seen him, he charged a wolf and flung me about like a ballet dancer on crack, and that without the runes on his hand. The wolves charged at him, but he was spinning and twirling me around so that at least a dozen of them fell before they finally managed to bring him down!" the blade told Malicorne, who was completely amazed that someone such as Saito could pull off such a feat. He was well aware that Saito's skill came only from his status as a Gandalfr and that defeating a pack of fenrir wolves with no arcane support, despite the skill, was a near impossible feat. So no wonder his reaction when he heard that the ex-familiar boy had done away with a dozen with little previous experience.

"Incredible," he said as he stared at Saito with a new sense of admiration.

"Heh, well, maybe it was," he chuckled, scratching the back of his head, still unused to this kind of attention. "But I didn't last long, they got me in a minute and started tearing at me, I still got this ugly scar on my forearm here," he said as he pulled the his sleeve back to let his friend se, "and many more on my back."

"… ouch…"

"Yeah, pretty ugly, eh? I'd probably been dead by now if it hadn't been for Louise casting her explosion spell on those wolves, I think I was bleeding pretty badly."

"Congratulations! You've just been chosen to receive the grand award for Understatement of the Century!" Derf said in a somewhat mocking tone.

"Shut up! Anyway, I think I passed out shortly after that, as I woke up later in Tifa's cottage. Everybody was worried so they were standing around me when I awoke and I had all kinds of bandages around me, so I couldn't really move. But still mate, that had to be the best moment of by life…"

"Huh? Lying sick in a bed?"

"No no, think like this: you're lying all broken and battered in a bead, tended to by three really cute girls of which two has amazing boobs, get it?" Saito described with a highly suggestive look.

"Wha? No fair!" his friend exclaimed as he laughed.

"Hah, yupp, I was in paradise," he leaned back with a smug look on his face, which changed to one of disillusion as he sighed. "Too bad it didn't last."

"Why, what happened?"

"Come on man, think! Two girls with large, bulbous breasts arching over me plus Louise in one room, what happens?"

"Ah…"

"So yeah, you know what happened. They started fighting, all three of them this time, leaving me in to myself in my bead. They kept on like that till I noticed somebody, a guy, standing next to Agnes, who looked unusually uncertain. Care to guess who it was?"

Malicorne thought for a moment, then answered: "That guy you were talking of before?"

"Correct. Jean was his name: a meek guy who I later got to know was Louise's new familiar."

"What?! She's got a new one?"

"Why're you so surprised, you met him yourself back then. You know, when we returned from Albion." At this, Mal merely scratched is head, clearly not remembering the encounter, his friends sighing when he shook his head. "Well, in any case, that's were all the problems began…" he trailed of, returning his gaze to the distant landscape, leaving the carriage silent for a while.

"Well?" the corpulent mage asked, starting to get impatient.

"Eh?"

"Well, what happened? You didn't tell me why it went wrong? Was he an arse or something?"

"What? No, he wasn't, just weak and submissive, kind of pathetic. Louise would have him sleep on a pile of hay in her room, just like she had me do the first weeks. And she had him wash her panties, just like she had me do in the beginning and-"

"What did you say?!" Mal flared up. "Wash her panties?! That's outrageous! I mean, he's still a guy!"

"Not in her mind, just like I wasn't. She'd treat him like a dog, having him do all sorts of menial chores or threaten him with the whip… or a blast. Thus he'd do what she asked for without questioning, fearing that he might get punished unless he did, pretty much like a slave."

"How pitiful," the chubby blonde commented. "Even I wouldn't sink to that level."

"That's what I mean, the guy had absolutely 0% spine. But still, he was a nice guy. I came across him once when he was doing her laundry outside in the late evening, I felt kind of sympathetic, thinking back at how I'd done just the same before, so I helped him out with it. Turned out he was a really nice guy, pretty smart too." At this, Malicorne raised an eyebrow.

"Hmm… if he's as nice as you give him out to be, then why the enmity?"

"That wasn't until much, much later, when I learned that he and Louise had been seeing each other behind my back. Back then he and I we're kind of like friends, especially considering us being from the same world."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not from this world, Malicorne. Believe or not, but that's the truth. I come from somewhere else, a completely different place that I guess you couldn't even begin to imagine, as much as I could this before I was summoned here. That doesn't matter however, what matters is that he's from exactly the same world. My kin, if you will."

"Whoa... Guess you must've had a strong bond then, eh?"

"Yeah, we'd help each other out whenever we could. I'd do the physical labour and he the brainwork, we worked like a team in many cases. He came with us on most of our adventures, like that time we rescued Tabitha from Gallia. At the end, we faced a huge metal golem called Jórmungandr, which we managed to bring down with the help of an artefact called "the Great Spear", which was a weapon from our world that Jean identified as a… a Flak 88, I think. As he now was the Gandalfr, not me, he was the one who understood how to use it, I merely played a supporting role that time. He told me what to do and I followed, he relying on my strength and I on his knowledge. Together, and with the help of Louise's magic, we brought the square class golem down and safely returned to Tristain."

"Amazing… but, why did you suddenly become so hostile to him then?"

"I couldn't have foreseen it, there was nothing that indicated anything of that sort," Saito rambled, unaware this time that his friend now had completely no idea what he was talking about. "After that, Louise and I got a lot closer towards each other, started making out more often. We got really close, and there was no clue that Jean felt anything towards her, or she felt any special about him." Now Mal had caught up to him, understanding fully as to what he was referring to. "It went on like that for about a year and a half, and then I started to hear rumours about them getting together behind my back. I didn't believe it at first, but when I caught the two snuggling with each other once, I realized that something was indeed wrong."

"How the hell did she fall for that guy? Compared to you, he sounds like a total pushover, what made her go for such a coward?"

"I have no idea, Mal, I really don't. What surprised me wasn't that she got attracted to him, as he was a truly goodhearted guy, but that he would fall for her. All the times that we'd talked about her, he'd just complained and whined about how cruel she was to him and how he wished he could get away from her. Next thing I knew, they were making out on her bed." Malicorne shook his head in disbelief, putting his palm on his forehead.

"Well, that just goes to show what taste she has," the rotund aristocrat said with finality.

"Hm?"

"Zero, just like her name: Zero Louise. Seems to me she hasn't changed a bit," he concluded, the disappointment evident by his contorted face. He'd almost expected the two to have a family now, but had during the short course of this short journey come to realize that they didn't live in Fluffy Fun Land after all.

"Yeah, guess so…" he trailed off again, albeit with a more melancholic tone in contrast to his previous angrier one.

"So what did you do then?" Mal wondered after a short pause. Saito merely chuckled.

"Nothing, I did nothing. We didn't talk about it, thinking it'd be best to just try and forget it. She even had Jean sleep in the plebeians' quarters, but it was already too late, the damage was already done. I'd lost my trust in Louise and she became quieter, I think she was a bit ashamed for that. Jean and I stopped talking as well, even though he tried to explain it once, I just told him go get away from me. He'd tricked me, all the time, and right in my face. I didn't want to hear his excuses."

"I can see were this is going," Malicorne muttered to himself.

"Our relationship just went downhill from then on. Finally, she admitted to loving him, something she's never done to me, and that's when I decided that I was through with her. Let her do what she wants to, I don't care. I'm not her familiar anymore, nor her vassal or her boyfriend, I'd not let her treat me like a dog anymore. And so I decided to leave, go away somewhere far for a very long time. Away from Tristain altogether. Only problem was… she'd become royalty by then." Saito's head dropped as he sighed.

"What?"

"It happened right after we returned from Gallia. Me, her and Guiche had relinquished our titles in order to go and rescue Tabitha without making it seem like a Tristainian incursion. When we came back, I and Guiche were returned our titles, while Louise was awarded the title of Princess of Tristain by the Queen. She's now second in line to the throne."

"Holy Brimir… who'd have thought…" Mal exclaimed, not able to believe what he'd just heard. "Zero Louise the Princess? Then how did you get permission to leave the country?"

"No big deal. I simple went to the only whose authority was superior to hers: the Queen. I convinced her to let me travel to the Eastern Lands in search of artefacts, for the benefit of the Crown. Giulio had told me that the Eastern Lands were rich in them, or at least had more of them than we did. Anyway, I got my permission and left a couple of days later by carriage for the Germanian border, Agnes taking me there. From there on, I walked, all the way through Germania and over the Albenbergen to the realms of the east and back by way of the south," he said and paused to look out at the horizon, beholding the mountains in the distance. "It was a lonely journey, even though I had Derflinger here with me, but it was worth it. It's made me feel strong and whole again, confident in myself. Kind of… reborn."

"So it was some sort of… introspective journey as well?," Saito nodded, seeing that his friend had understood his full situation. "But now you're back, elevated and all, so what do you plan to do?" Saito let out another sigh, though this time one of uncertainty.

"I don't know, Mal, I have no idea. When I was away, I missed this place, but now that I've returned and feel that I've accomplished something, it's just blank. I have absolutely no idea what to do."

"You haven't thought of making up with her?" he inquired.

"Nah, she and I are through. Besides, if she wants to make up, she's the one who should apologize, as she was the one to go behind my back," he said, crossing his arms. This time though, the accompanying mage chuckled. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing really, it's just a little… ironic to hear that coming from you."

"How do you mean," Saito asked, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice.

"Well, back when we were all still in the academy, it wasn't all that rare to catch you with another girl, say… Siesta," he made a smug look which greatly annoyed the mundane noble, although still making him feel somewhat guilty. "It's funny that you should get so upset of seeing her with him once or twice, when she's caught you so many times ogling at other girls. One would think of you to be more understanding," he said with a sly grin. There was a pause, as Saito was at a loss of words, not knowing how to respond.

"Maybe… perhaps you're right. Perhaps I've been a little too harsh on her, now that you put it that way. But the fact still remains that she had another relationship behind my back, she admitted to it herself!"

"True, Baron Hiraga, but can you really call it a relationship when she never confessed to you? You said just a while ago that she'd never told you that she loved you," Mal pressed with a very sly expression on his face, Saito couldn't believe it was the same Malicorne that he'd known at he academy all those years ago. He'd changed, completely.

Also, he was right.

"You're right, Mal. Maybe I'm imagining things, maybe I've just done that all the time," Saito admitted his defeat, but looked up as he felt a hand pat his shoulder.

"Don't you go blue on me now, Saito. I was just joking around, of course she was in love with you, it was written all over her, as evident as it could get. You two had a relationship, everybody thought so, even before I left for Gallia," he assured his friend, not wanting him to sink into melancholy. "All I wanted was for you to see that she wasn't the only one at fault here, for I believe that those feelings of yours are clouding your judgement."

"What feelings?"

"Love, partner," Derflinger pointed out, popping out of his sheath. "Unrequited love, that's what you feel. You've been waiting so long for her to say those three little words that you've become totally oblivious to her actual feelings, the hints she gives you, the way she treats you and reacts to you, it's all there. You alone failed to notice that." Saito's eyes lit up as he heard Derf's explanation, he was right. All the time, he'd been doing exactly that, waiting to hear her say "I love you" till it was all he could think of, ignoring her actual feelings.

"Derflinger is right, Saito. You had your chance back then, you always had and maybe… no, probably still do." Saito began contemplating their words, but didn't have much time, as the wagon came to a halt and a strong hand shaking his shoulder pulled him out of his thoughts. He looked up at a smiling Malicorne. "Well, looks like we've arrived. I hope it's not too much to ask for a tour, Baron?"


	4. Shire of the Damned

**CHAPTER FOUR: ****SHIRE OF THE DAMNED**

"So, this is it?" Saito asked, looking at his newly acquired property with disbelief.

"Err… I think so," came Malicorne's equally disillusioned reply as he stared at the castle.

"Looks kind of old, doesn't? I mean, aren't castles here usually… brighter?"

"They are… usually…"

The two stood staring like idiots at the castle, Château d'Hiraga, feeling somewhat tricked. Not that it was bad in any sense, and the size was to be expected of such a small domain, but it simply looked too… old. Built out of large bricks of stone, the once magnificent castle looked more like a gloomy haunted house from some old, run-down theme park. The once solid walls were almost completely destroyed, the red tiled roof sported big holes, all the towers stood in brilliant disrepair while the keep itself looked like it'd crumble to dust any minute. It looked so old in fact, that they wondered why the locals hadn't already stripped the building of its blocks to use as building material. That was, until they noticed that the surrounding town was equally deserted, everything being one, big ghost town.

"Ghastly a sight, isn't it?" They heard a male voice say from behind.

"Aye," both Malicorne and Saito replied in unison, before they actually noticed the third part and spun around, surprised over the man's sudden appearance. Before them stood a man appearing to be in his late thirties, sporting a neat anchor beard and an equally neat, short black haircut, wearing what looked like a cavalryman's uniform.

"Who are you?" Saito asked

"Charles Philippe le Bon de Valois, Comte d'Artois, at your service," he said, bowing, and was about to continue when he was abruptly cut of by Malicorne.

"Oh… where have I heard that before… aren't you perhaps, Count of Nowhere?" The comment elicited a series of chokes from surprised count.

"What kind of stupid name is that?" Saito deadpanned.

"What, haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"About Count of Nowhere, he's pretty much the laughing stock of the whole Tristanian nobility."

"Why? What did he do?"

"I- I can explain that! I wa-" the distressed noble began, but was again cut off his chubbier counterpart.

"You won't believe how stupid it is! This guy, the former Duke of Artois, was fooled by his Germanian neighbour, the Baron of Richthofen, into holding a military parade in Richthofen's capital: Aach. He was a fool enough to fall for it, and marched with his entire military right into the middle of the city. The Baron had then evacuated his city and filled it with his own troops, who attacked the Count's unprepared soldiers and killed off nearly his entire military in a massive ambush. When Valois's troops scattered into the surrounding forests, they were rooted out and done away with by the Germanian Emperor's guards, who were passing by. The Emperor was enraged and threatened Tristan with war, putting the entire royal court in chaos. Queen Adèle was then forced to apologize to the Emperor for having irresponsibly let her vassal trespass into Germanian territory, a greatly humiliating act. Then the Duke, having lost his entire army, was forced to watch as all his lands were run down and occupied by the much weaker Baron. When he asked for the Queen's aid, she became so enraged the she shouted at him in front of the entire court, threw him out and demoted him from Duke to Count and also had him, a man of blue blood, work at the demesne of one of the royal manors. Unbelievable!"

Saito just stood wide eyed, staring back and forth between Malicorne and Charles, the latter's cheek being streaked with tears. Upon seeing the poor man and Saito's incredulous stare, the bulky mage let out a hearty, yet mighty laugh.

"My dignity…" the landless Count mumbled, staring at his hands as if witnessing said virtue escape between his fingers. There was a pause in which the two of them eyed the noble, one with splendid disbelief, the other with pity, on the verge of laughing. It was so silent though, that one could hear the cold wind whistle across the landscape, causing the Japanese Baron to chill.

"Chshshsh… cold…" he mumbled between his shaking teeth.

As if on cue, the Count regained his former composure, looking like nothing like happened at all, trying to radiate an aura of coolness and discipline.

"Maybe you would like to examine your property closer. Perhaps, from the inside?" he asked politely, still able to maintain a faint sense of dignity. Saito was amazed at how quickly he could recover when just seconds ago he'd looked like having gone beyond the point of salvation.

"Umm… yeah, sure," he answered.

"Great! This way then, if you may."

* * *

Nearly every room, chamber and corridor showed signs of decay: the wooden doors were all rotten and fell apart upon touch; the courtyard was overgrown with weed; the corridors lined with age-old filth; the toilets infested with insects, worms and other disgusting vermin; the bed chamber was soaked in water and hid bats in the darker corners while those parts of the building that were seemingly intact were soaked in water, moist and sported huge colonies of mould. Not even the basement was spared from the castle's cruel fate, having been flooded for what seemed like year, the water's surface by now covered in algae.

"So… what's the deal with this place?" Saito questioned the Count, who seemed to know everything about it.

"This small, insignificant region of the country is commonly known as Shire of the Damned and has throughout history, ever since the death of the founding dynasty, been used as a sort of disposal area for nobles who have fallen into disfavour with the Monarch, the clergy or the high nobility. Many nobles have been assigned to this little hole as a sort of punishment for any wrong they might have done to any of the parties I mentioned," Charles told, gesturing with his hands in slow, fluent motions while speaking in a sorrowful tone. "Every single one of these lords, counts, dukes and barons who were given this land in lease ended up having their lives completely ruined in one way or another. Most went bankrupt from being unable to pay the taxes that were laid upon them due to the infertile grounds and lack of minerals, others came here with ambition and worked tirelessly to bring some life into this land, but alas, their efforts were all in vain and they ended up going mad, locked in asylums for the rest of their lives. The wisest ones, people will tell you, committed suicide in order to escape the torture, whereas others gave up their title and were imprisoned or executed for treason, depending solely on how much mercy the clergy, nobility or monarch was willing to show. A few nobles even fled the country, either to Gallia or to Germania. These were the fortunate ones, for they married themselves into rich burgher families and established strong and wealthy noble dynasties. There was even one who endured the pain of this wretched place to the end, dying all alone in this very castle on an equally wretchedly cold and stormy night. He even wrote a book about it, which is credited for increasing piety and loyalty of the nobles to the higher-ups, as no one would from then on dare to annoy the people in power, out of fear of being assigned to this land," he finished, resting his hand on a wooden railing, looking out over the town below with a mournful gaze.

Saito himself was completely drained of colour, knowing now that he'd practically been sentenced to death.

"Legends also tell that his ghost walks the corridors on rainy nights, moaning and staring out across the land, crying over his wasted life, screaming out all of his angst with such force, that even the water spirit of Lake Lagdorian be not spared his suffering."

"But," Malicorne probed, "why would anyone assign Saito to this place? I mean, he was being lauded as a hero just yesterday!"

"I do not know, I can only guess that someone must have wanted him ill and convinced the Queen to hand him this land. For with all due respect to our blessed Queen, a truly wonderful woman indeed, she seems to lack the sceptical eyes needed to see through the lies of those around her. Many rulers before her have been convinced to put otherwise innocent aristocrats in charge of this hellhole. Naïveté is indeed a most dangerous thing for a Queen to possess."

"That just sounds terrible… did you hear that Saito? Looks like your days are numbered." Saito just laughed uneasily at the comment, all too preoccupied with mourning his past life in the face of his imminent doom.

"Well, it also depends on who taxes him. Is it merely the Queen or does it go all the way down to the Count?"

"Hmm… don't know, Saito, where's that deed you had?" Saito was shook out of his thoughts and produced a scroll from one of his pockets.

"Err… about that I've actually got no idea, I'm not so good with reading the language," he confessed as he produced a scroll from beneath his cloak.

"No worries, it's just what I expect. Nobody bothers with education nowadays anyway. As decadent as our nobility is, they only concern themselves with having fun," the dishonoured Count ranted as he unfurled the piece of parchment, after which he studied it. There was a pause as the two younger peers waited for the older to finish, which never happened as Charles stopped mumbling in the middle of it, leaving his mouth hanging open.

"Well, what does it say?" Saito asked, growing impatient.

"Holy Brimir… I can't believe it!"

"What?" Mal demanded.

"It's unbelievable! This land has been granted to you for free! There's no talk of any allodium or tax here! This domain has been designated a vrijheerlijkheid!"

"A what?" the two young adults asked, irritated by the Count's senseless ramble.

"A true barony! Usually the lord of this land would be put as a vassal under someone else, like the Queen or the Duke, even if it's a Baron like you, who according to Tristanian custom should be a free lord. Here however, it states that the property belongs solely to Baron Chiraga, as long as he is willing to commit his armed forces to the Queen in case of war. It's simply unbelievable! This place hasn't enjoyed such freedom since its foundation!"

"Well that's nice, but I have a question," Malicorne said with a hint of suspicion in his otherwise jolly voice.

"Of course."

"Why are you so happy?"

"Me? Haven't I already told you?"

"… No…" both Saito and Mal replied, eyeing the euphoric Count with suspicion.

"Ever since I was stripped of my ducal title I've been given the task to counsel the landholders of this domain, to give advice to them on how to best manage this land. In reality however, I was more of an observer with the task of reporting back to the royal courts of the shire's state and the lord's status. For them it was all merely a game to see how long the poor aristocrat would last. For many years now I have witnessed countless nobles fail in their efforts to make something worthy out of this godforsaken hellhole. Though I know this place is far from likeable, I have over time, despite its cursed nature, come to enjoy it in a… special way. And now, finally, I can bear witness to perhaps the greatest thing in the history of this shire! You can't possibly imagine how this feels! For the first time, I may see this place rise to a level above inhospitable! And I'll become known as the man behind the scenes, the advisor who made it all work," the Count finished, tears of joy watering his cheeks.

"Oh, well, umm… I'm glad you're happy about it," Saito said, unsure of what else to say.

"And that's not all, my friends! Moreover, the Queen has been generous enough to give you a starting capital of 600.000 New Gulden! 600.000! Can you believe it? That's more than half a million!" This information succeeded in catching the full attention of the aspiring Baron, whose eyes were on the verge of falling out of its sockets.

"No, Sir. No… I honestly can't believe it…" he said, his face radiating with the utmost excitement.

"But wait, something's not right here," Malicorne pointed out. "I mean just look at it, considering the place's history, this kind of generosity is just too good to be true. There's got to be some sort of catch to it."

"I don't know, but this sounds pretty good to me," Saito said, his eyes reflecting big green ¥ symbols.

"Whatever, I just think there's something amiss about all this. Charles, does it say anything more?" Mal pressed.

"Well… there IS a personal comment by the Queen at the bottom of this deed. It reads: 'I am putting my full faith in you and hope that you will be able to make something worthwhile out of that region, as I'm sick of it being used as a playground for the corrupt nobles around me. Bearing in mind your recent achievement, I am fully confident that you will succeed in bringing some dignity to that sadly forsaken place.

Henrietta I, Reine de Tristain.'" As he read the comment, his voice trailed off more and more for each sentence, finally becoming inaudible. There was a short pause as the weight of the meaning behind it sank in upon the unsuspecting Baron.

"I knew there would be a catch," Malicorne concluded with morose finality.

* * *

"But still, with all there is to it, this situation is nearly not as bad as the other nobles'," Charles pointed out as he was walking down a dim corridor, with Malicorne and Saito in tow.

"Hmm… maybe, but the Queen still has her expectations, which still makes him ill pressured to live up to them," Malicorne argued.

"Meh…" Saito sighed; tired at his two companions debating over something he considered being his concern alone. "Hey, Charles, this is the last room we haven't seen yet, eh?"

"That is correct."

"Great. Can we go home after this then?" At this, de Valois turned around, confused at the Baron's absurd question.

"What do you mean? This is your home now, isn't it? Or did you have anything else in mind?"

"Umm… well, I thought I could sleep in the a… oh yeah, that's right, I'm no longer in the academy," he mumbled to himself, the Count just shook his head.

"Anyway, with it being dinner time, I thought it would be appropriate to show you the dining hall," he said.

"Excellent! I was just thinking of asking when we'd eat!" the now excited bulbous younger mage exclaimed, pulling out a series of utensils from nowhere, holding them between his fingers.

"That is why I spared this room to the very last, just for the occasion," he said as he opened the big wooden door to the room.

The three of them stepped in and looked around, taking in the sight that was the Château d'Hiraga dining hall, though it rather resembled a very large prison cell: the stone walls were dark; wet and covered in algae, in the ceiling there was a big hole through which water dripped, creating a very irritating click that echoed throughout the chamber every few seconds; the floor also had large patches of algae, making it extremely slippery; the chairs and tables, which were made of wood, were rotten to the core and the entire room had a particularly nauseating stench to it.

"So this is my dining hall…" Saito said, suddenly feeling an urge to strangle somebody.

"I think I'm about to throw up," Malicorne complained, clutching his stomach. The Count just laughed smugly, not knowing what to say now. He was absolutely certain that he'd succeeded in crushing the newly appointed Baron's hope now. Even though he had nothing personal against the boy (in fact he even liked him), it was sort of a game of his to see how long it'd take for him before he could crush any hopes that the new proprietor might have.

The three were so occupied with their own thoughts that they didn't notice the maid who came into the room from the kitchen. She had come halfway to the long refectory table when she noticed the three people standing in front of the door to the main corridor: the first smiling to himself, having that proud look of somebody who's just accomplished something; the second rotund and bent over, arms covering his belly, looking like he'd puke any minute while the third looked completely incredulous, like he'd just fallen for some unlikely fraud of ridiculous proportions.

The third man in particular caught her interest, as he did seem awfully familiar. She began to get a faint clue as to who the person was, a hint she thought more convincing for every millisecond that passed.

"Saito?" she asked, hoping for the love of God that he wasn't someone else. He snapped back into reality, searching the source of the sound till he noticed the maid in the middle of the room. In that instant, his heart skipped a beat, his jaw dropped and his eyes bulged out: now he stood staring at her instead, looking even more stupefied than he did before.

"S- Siesta?" he asked back, not able to believe his eyes. While on his great one-man expedition to the Eastern Lands, he'd thought about her a great lot. Especially as he'd broken up with his old love, Louise, for what he saw as her cheating on him. For three years with only meagre contact with his old life, he'd thought about her, yearning to meet her again upon his return. That feeling had grown larger for every time and now, when he finally saw her after all those years, he just couldn't believe it. He nodded, affirming her question.

With the confirmation of her question, she unconsciously dropped the tray she was carrying and slowly stepped forward in his direction. Her pace increased and within mere seconds she was already sprinting, calling out his name.

To Saito, this reminded him of something that happened about six years ago.

Coming close enough, she opened her arms to embrace him, but slipped on a piece of algae and flew right into him, causing them both to fall with her landing on top of him. She locked her arms around his neck and completely latched onto him, unwilling to let go.

"It's really you! I can't believe it! You were away for so long, I never thought I'd see you again! Oh, Saito!" she said, tears of joy streaming from her eyes, while she hugged him even tighter, as if fearing that he might disappear again. What she didn't notice though, was that her grip was actually choking him.

"Ca-c-ca can't… breathe!" he managed, his eyes bulging out.

"Stop it! Who the hell do you think you are, jumping onto a noble like that?" Charles shouted at the excited woman, clearly unaware of their relation to each other, and outraged at such disrespectful behaviour from a commoner. Refraining from using magic so as not to harm the Baron, he went up to the couple and tried to pull Siesta away from Saito before the latter would die from asphyxiation.

"Ugh… oi, you guys… I'm not feeling too well," Malicorne moaned, looking utterly miserable. Not concerning himself with the others, he started to look for a window, as he knew that having to see a rerun of today's dinner was now inevitable. He looked around the chamber for a spot where he could dump his rests, finding a tall, stained glass window to the far left of him. Pulling out his wand, he made a rush for the opening, chanting a spell as he was hurrying towards it. Finishing the incantation, he snapped the wand at the glass with force, creating a mighty blow of wind that shattered the glass into thousands of pieces, spreading it out over the land below. He then dropped the little enchanted stick, crashed into the side of the now glassless window and promptly spewed out a ray of stinking orange fluid that came crashing down the exterior wall of the castle, watering the weed and shrubbery below that had begun overtaking the building.

For Charles, things weren't going nearly as smoothly. With Siesta holding Saito in an iron grip and the latter on the verge of suffocation, he was getting very distressed. For all his strength he couldn't manage to pull the insolent servant off of her master, he lot go and stood up, watching the couple on the floor with a much stressed look. He had to act fast, lest the Baron's life would come to a premature (if yet pleasant) end. Taking out his own wand and chanting a quick spell, he made a few small circles in the air with it, pointing at the air above the pair and created a small freak raincloud over them, which began to rain furiously the very second it materialized. Finally, feeling the cold rain pouring down on her, she yelped and let go of him, rolling to the side and finally letting the Japanese regain his breath. Charles dispelled the cloud, which dissipated and vanished into thin air as if never having existed in the first place.

Finally, with the spectacle over, the two people on the floor became aware of their chilly, soaked clothes, clutching themselves and shaking violently as they were freezing. The Valois Count sighed and shook his head, amazed and the chaos surrounding him. Having seen the other mage cast a wind spell just moments ago, he turned in his direction only to find him still violently vomiting out the window. When he stopped a minute or so later, he picked up his wand and came staggering back, still feeling ill.

"Malicorne, was it?" Charles asked.

"Yes, Malicorne d'Arnaud le Grande d'Albret," he replied, his voice ridden with the feeling of sickness.

"Great. I take it you are able to bring some comfort to these two?" Malicorne looked at the two with a curious look, wondering how they'd managed to get themselves soaked with no water around but the drops coming from the roof.

"Sure," he shrugged and lifted his wand, doing a small incantation and some fluent motions with the wooden stick before pointing in their direction. A warm breeze then blew over and around them, drying them up in an instant before disappearing. Finished, the corpulent magician then clutched his head, which was throbbing relentlessly. "This place is giving me a migraine, I need to get out of gere" he said, but nobody listened.

"So, now that the storm's calmed down," Charles began, "let med ask you who the hell you think you are to go grappling a noble like that, let alone your own lord? Have you no shame at all? Do you even have an idea what legal consequences that merits?" he said, scowling at the maid on the floor, whose attention he'd finally caught. "I think a punishment is in order, so that it may deter you from repeating such things in the future." He began waving his wand again, muttering an incantation, Siesta being utterly horrified.

"Hey, stop that!" Saito's voice roared at the Count, who promptly stopped chanting, opened his eyes and looked confused at the lower ranked peer.

"But Sir, she clearly showed signs of disobedience, it's only proper to punish those vassals who behave disorderly," he replied, not understanding what he'd done to anger the lord.

"I don't care about that, you are not to harm her in any way. If you from now on so much as lay a finger on her, I'll make sure that you'll regret it dearly!" he declared, his voice holding the sort of authority that seemed alien to him, all the three in the room looked at him with startled expressions on there faces: Malicorne and Siesta for seeing him having changed so much since their last time and Charles for seeing a lord being so protective of a mere servant, especially in the face of such misconduct. "Is that understood?" he asked with force, casting a near murderous look on the Count.

"Y- yes, Sir!"

"Fine then," he said curtly, now eyeing the Count with suspicion. "What the hell are you doing here anyway?" At this question, Charles tripped and fell, not wanting to believe that everything he'd been saying so far had been ignored by the lords, or that he was too dense to understand it. Meanwhile, Siesta got up from the floor and hurried away into the kitchen.

"Like I have said before, I am Charles Philippe le Bon de Valois, and throughout the years I've been in charge of monitoring the lords of this shire and keep track of their progress. Likewise, I am here to observe and counsel you on matters regarding the management of this little region," he repeated, holding back his irritation. "The Queen has personally asked for me to become your advisor, thus I couldn't turn her down. You can think of me as your steward of sorts."

"Ah… so that's how it is."

"Indeed," Charles muttered, clenching his teeth. For all that he'd heard Saito accomplish, he found him to be an extremely dense individual, a trait that irked him considerably.

Suddenly, they heard a loud cracking noise from behind and, turning around, they saw Siesta placing a large tray full of various foods on the short side of the far table. As she took the various bowls and baskets from it, and putting the on the table, it cracked even more. Finally it could take no more and its weak, rotten legs gave way to the weight and snapped, making the entire table fall to the ground with an ungodly noise. Siesta merely yelped and hopped back, then gave the former table an incredulous stare.

_Is there nothing in this damned castle that works?_ she thought.

"I've got a suggestion," Malicorne spoke up and then paused, waiting to catch everybody's full attention, "how about we go OUTSIDE and eat and stop wasting time in this godforsaken castle, as obviously nothing is in working condition. Besides, this room is giving me a migraine," he restated.

"Ah, sounds good," Saito agreed, all nodding to Mal's proposal.

"I'll take care of it then, you just go out and wait. I'll have it ready in no time," Siesta said, a bit of irritation creeping into her voice. Not because any of the people annoyed her, but more because she'd been toying in this castle for about three hours straight now and had been met with innumerable collapsing chairs, counters and tables. Even for a maid like her, who normally has great patience considering her having to do the bidding of every stuck up aristocrat she happens to find herself in the vicinity of, it was beginning to run out.

The three men went out the door and towards the exit, Malicorne hurrying in particular, not wishing to spend a second more in that room. Siesta went into the kitchen to pack up everything again and bring it all outside, sighing at the extra work.

* * *

She stood in the kitchen, which was ridden with algae, bird faeces and spider webs, and the air was damp and bloated with the odour of rot. All the counters were in shambles, lying in scattered pieces of timber on the ground. Siesta stood in the back of the room, carrying an inhuman amount of luggage on her back, looking at one trunk in particular. It was the size of a coffin and weighed nearly a ton. She was considering if she should leave it in the castle and come back for it later, or if she should take it now to spare her the torment of having to come back and get it. Besides, who knew when the castle might crumble and bury it, considering the condition it was in? More so however, she wondered what it contained, as she had not opened it and her colleagues at the academy had apparently packed that one for her. She stood and thought of opening it for the moment.

"Nah, I'll come back for it tomorrow," she spoke to herself. "If this castle hasn't crumbled already, I don't see why it should now." She nodded and turned around to walk away and was just about to exit the room when she heard a series of thuds and muffled bangs from behind. Looking back, she noticed that the trunk was throbbing violently, hopping up and down seemingly by itself. Her eyes widened, as she thought for a moment that something dangerous might be lurking inside. However, she quickly waved that thought away, as her own colleagues wouldn't do anything of the like. Instead, she approached it with the intent of opening it, now thinking that there was some poor little creature trapped inside. As she a came closer the thuds and bangs became more frequent, possibly the creature within was panicking.

She kneeled down before it and hesitated for a few second, thens shaking her head, she unlocked the lid. It flew open and at once a rather large animal flew out of the trunk, screaming.

"So, Baron Hiraga," Charles began.

"Please, just call me Saito, I've never been much for formalities," he replied.

"Saito… I was wondering just now, exactly what is you re-" He only came that far before they heard the bloodcurling cry of something that sounded like a psychopath on a killing spree, followed by Siesta's scream.

"What the hell was that?" Malicorne slowly turned around, looking up at the castle, his face completely devoid of colour.


	5. The End of the Beginning

**CHAPTER FIVE: THE END OF THE BEGINNING**

"So let me get this straight, you're on the run from Louise, and you came to ME for protection?" Saito tried to asses what he'd been told.

"Well, yeah," the man opposite to him replied.

"In a trunk…"

"Yup." The Baron sighed and shook his head.

"And what makes you think that I'll take you in just like that?" he said, the man looking confused and a bit frightened.

"Well, I just thought of us as friends and so, I mean, after all we've been through together… and us being from the same world. I thought we were kind of like brothers, you know." Saito just facepalmed.

"Do you honestly think that I'd just up and forgive you for that time you betrayed me, and protect you on top of that?"

"Wha? That wasn't me! It was her doing that, not me!" the man objected.

"Well you didn't exactly have any objections about it," Saito said and eyed the man accusingly.

"What? Man, why are YOU of all people telling ME that? Like you didn't fool around with all the o-"

"Watch it!" the mundane noble warned sternly, the man just sighing in defeat.

"Look, believe what you want, believe what she told you if you want to, I don't care. But in that case, just you know, her feelings are one-sided. I don't love her back! Not the least bit!" the man tried to get his point across, feeling desperate as his last hope for sanctuary seemed to fade away. "She treats me like slave all the time! If I do even the slightest mistake, she withholds my meals or has me sleep in the hallway or whips me to oblivion. Just look at my back if you don't believe me!" he yelled frantically, turning around and pulling up his shirt, revealing his back for all to see, full of unsightly scars from whip lashes. The disgusting image elicited a yelp from Siesta, a wince from the Count of Artois and an "Oww…" from Malicorne. "I look like an Iranian prisoner!" he finished.

Saito's face didn't change a bit, keeping that stern, focused look on the man who sat across from him. Said man, believing that he'd lost the bond he'd once shared with the Baron, was on the verge of giving up, again letting out a defeated sigh.

"Saito, I came out here in the faith that what we had was something special, that you'd be as forgiving and as humane as you were back then. In this totally fucked up world of mages and dragons and whatnot, we're the only people from Earth: two of a kind. We shouldn't be fighting each other! It should be like in the old times, when we looked out for each other, you did what I couldn't and I what you couldn't. It was perfect, a brilliant symbiosis, and I trusted you, Saito. You're the only person in this whole weird world that I can call a friend, the single one that I can fully put my trust in. Back when I was new here, you were the only one who really gave a shit about me, you were there for me and-" he stopped there, noticing the strange expression of discomfort on Saito's face, along with the weird faces the other three made that were practically screaming: "What the fuck?"

"Ok, I know that just sounded really gay, but I'm not into that, so calm down. Let me put it simply: you're the only guy who's ever given a damn about me and helped me in times of need, so now I'd like to repay the debt." Saito raised his eyebrow at his words.

"Oh, how then?"

"Well… I could provide lots of information on different things, you know, like an advisor. Like we did before you know, I rely on your strength and you on my knowledge."

"I think that I've already got that part covered," he said, gesturing to Charles.

"Oh, ok… anything then! How about that? I'll do anything for you: laundry, cooking, building, cleaning the toilets." Everybody around Jean shuddered at his mentioning of the toilets. "You can never get enough household servants, now can you? Anything! As long as I don't have to go back to her again. I beg you!" Jean pleaded. Saito thought it over carefully, pondering for minutes before arriving at his decision with a sigh.

"Ok, Jean, I'll let you stay here. But cross me one more time like you did back then and I swear I'll put you on one of those dragons and have you dropped off and marooned on some remote pathetic place at which you'll spend the rest of your pitiful life, understood?" he warned, his eyes fixed on Jean like that of a hawk. Everyone except Charles looked at Saito with surprise, astonished that he'd gone from being the goodhearted guy they'd all gotten to know to become so ruthless, surely his journey had changed him. Jean himself didn't know if he should feel glad or scared by his words, but was grateful nevertheless.

"Roger!"

"Good," Saito sighed.

"Umm… I think there's a problem though," Malicorne added.

"What?" Saito and Jean asked in unison.

"Well, Jean here is supposed to become your servant, right? In order for that to happen he must first become your vassal, which can be done easily by signing a paper and taking a simple oath. However, right now he's still Louise's familiar, look, he's still got the runes on his hand," he said, pointing at the inscription on Jean's hand. "I don't think it's entirely legal to vassalize a familiar, at least I've never heard about it."

"Oh… damn, you've got a point there. Sorry Jean, seems like I can't help you." The hopeless man let out another defeated sigh at Saito's words, followed by one of the Japanese's own.

"That's not true," Charles cut in. "While it may seem so, legally speaking there's nothing that bars a noble from taking up a familiar as a vassal. Because such a thing is so unlikely to occur, nobody ever bothered to set up any laws about it, and there's certainly no legal precedent on the matter. As far as legal matters go, there should be no problem with Saito taking up Jean as a vassal." Saito nodded at the information.

"Good, I'll have you sign the necessary papers tomorrow then, or how's this vassalization thing done, Charles?"

"Actually, there's only one paper to sign, it being an agreement between the lord and the one to be vassalized. That paper needs to be signed in the presence of two eyewitnesses. There's also a second part, which requires that an oath of fealty be taken directly after the signing of the paper by the vassal."

"Great then. But we'll skip the oath however, that's just unnecessary."

"How exactly is that unnecessary, Saito?" Charles asked, slightly irked at such ignorance of custom.

"It doesn't prove anything, that's why. The paper at least constitutes some hard evidence that I'm his lord, but the oath won't ever help me anywhere. Those things are just for sentimentality's sake and I don't think that any of us care about any of that stuff. Right, Jean?" Saito waved his hand as he talked, expressing his indifference over the concept, while Jean nodded in agreement at the black haired man's question.

"Indeed," came his concise reply, the Count merely sighing.

"Still, there's one question I'd like to ask you Jean, before we get on with eating," Saito continued.

"Oh, and what is that?"

"Was it really necessary for you to jump out like that and give Siesta a heart attack?"

There was a short pause before Jean managed to gather his thoughts and form them into a sensible reply.

"Uhm… well, that's just how it turned out, kind of. I guess I must've fallen asleep there while we were on our way here and then woken up just when Siesta was about to leave the kitchen. I guess I got a panic attack as I really don't like to be alone, at least in places I'm not familiar with," he explained.

"Okay, I guess that's a reasonable explanation."

"Wonderful, can we please get on to eating now? I'm starving!" Malicorne complained, his stomach growling violently. Everybody else sweatdropped, but nodded as they didn't want to get on his bad side, knowing full well that an angry mage is no fun thing to be around.

So they dug in. Virtually everything was to be found before them: a big craft stew; oxen cutlets; bacon; chicken; bread and butter; leeks and lettuce and carrot and cucumber; wine and beer; eggs and even pickles. Everything one could expect to find on a mediaeval western European noble's dinner table. Malicorne, with his voracious appetite, of course ate loads out of everything, Charles kept himself to stew, cutlet and wine, Saito went with sandwiches and pickles while Jean took some eggs, apprehensive at first but after a reassuring nod from Siesta, took to tasting one of the cutlets, on which he then began to feast with great pleasure. Siesta herself mostly stuck to the stew. After finishing their meals and downing more than just a few glasses of wine, everybody was a tad more lively, even Charles himself loosening up a bit, letting his language sink to more vulgar levels.

"So folks," Charles began, "what's your relation to each other? I can't really figure out how a mundane aristocrat, a human familiar, some housemaid and a fat Gallic noble can come to gather in this shithole of a town, of all places. I mean… you people must've known each other prior to meeting here, eh?"

"Of course we do!" Saito exclaimed in response, clearly drunk, as could also be deduced from his red face. "But that's a long story, you'll just be bored."

"The hell I will! Come on now, tell me!" the Count demanded, taking another gulp from his glass.

Saito began telling his story, starting at when he plopped down in the familiar summoning ritual six years ago, slurring as he did so, occasionally bursting into fits of rage or laughter, flailing angrily with his arms when he did the former. Obviously his alcohol tolerance was next to nothing, as he'd only had a couple of glasses of wine and was already drunk. Siesta even more so, having only had one glass, and was now extremely drowsy, her face flushed completely red. As the world was spinning around her, she decided to lie down and get some sleep, making herself comfortable on Saito's lap. Charles merely grunted at the maid's insolence, then continued to hear Saito's tale of his adventures at the academy, miraculously perfectly understanding the drunken baron's otherwise incomprehensible mix of unevenly emphasized words and grunts.

Malicorne sat and looked at the trio, watching Charles listen intently to Saito's rave and Siesta sleeping on his friends lap. He himself wasn't the least bit drunk, having gotten used to drinking back at his grandfather's manor in Gallia, tolerated well most sorts of alcohol. Seeing as the other three were busy, this left him with only Jean, who held a glass of wine and was starting to get a little tipsy.

"Put that down, you're only going to throw up if you drink more than that," Malicorne advised him, Jean replying with no more than a dissatisfied grunt and put the glass down on the grass behind him. The glass tipped and fell, watering the grass beneath with its red contents.

"You haven't drunk before, have you?" he asked Jean.

"Nah, at least not this much," he answered, his face also flushed red, although he still retained his senses. "A glass of wine or can of beer, but no more than that, at least not at one and the same time. You then?"

"Many times, but that's not interesting," he said and waved his hand. "What's interesting is what you've been up to during all these years?"

"Since when, you mean?"

"Since I left the academy."

Jean hummed, trying to figure out where to start.

"I had to leave after that thing with the swim suits, remember?" Mal added, feeling something hit his arm only second after.

"Oi, keep it down a bit, I'm listening to a good story here," Charles said, Mal simply nodded, a bit irritated.

"Oh, that one!" Jean beamed up at the memory. "Haha! That time was just awesome, wasn't it?" he said and laughed out loud. Malicorne chuckled, still waiting for him to tell.

"Oh, man, that sure was a nice time. Heh, six years ago, wasn't it? Damn, time's just to fast," Jean said, looking up at the stars above. "Well, actually, a lot happened after you left. We did go to Gallia ourselves, you know."

"What? And you didn't even think of visiting me?!" Jean just laughed.

"Haha, the hell? We didn't even know where you lived! You could just as well have been on the other side of the country. Besides, I think we were headed a completely different way. Do you know where Alhambra is?"

"Alhambra? Of course! It's one of Gallia's most famous landmarks, it's in the capital!"

"Yup, and that's where we were going. Tabitha got captured after you left, you see, due to the internal struggle within the Gallic royal family. Our purpose was to go infiltrate the capital and rescue her from her captor the King."

"You went up against the King?!"

"Well, not directly, we never came close to him. After all, we didn't want to confront the King, just get Tabitha out." At this, Malicorne eased. "We managed that well, also bringing her poor mother with us, but got stopped at the border to Tristan by some gigantic… earth golem, I think it was."

"Oh that, Saito told me about it."

"He did?"

"Aye, on the way here. He told me that you two worked perfectly in tandem in handling some powerful weapon or something."

"The Flak 88?" Jean asked.

"Yeah, think that was what he called it. But I've heard all that, then he only told me that he and Louise got a lot closer until you did something with her," Malicorne said.

"Oi, I think I told you to quiet down!" Charles said in a more threatening tone as he once again bumped the rotund mage, who continued to ignore him.

"Well, actually it was the other way around."

"Tell me," he said, putting his empty glass on the blanket and then crossing his arms.

"Well, after that "trip" to Gallia, nothing much really happened. As he said, Saito and Louise got closer, and while they were making out I was usually assigned to do the Princess's laundry," he said, spitting out he word "Princess" as if it was the dirtiest of profanities. "Other times, I was tasked with carrying her stuff around whenever she went anywhere and when I wasn't doing either, I was usually cooking."

"Cooking?"

"Yes, apparently SOMEBODY for once noticed my culinary skills. Louise soon got wind of it and had me placed in the academy's employ as a cook together with that weird head chef of theirs. Then, when I came back, she barely gave me any rest, but sent me out again to do some menial task and if I didn't do as she'd ordered, she'd blow me to oblivion."

"Sounds tough."

"That's a mild way to put it. It would've been complete and utter hell hadn't it been for Saito, sometimes he came to help me out with some chore or convinced Louise to let it go. Before I knew it, I'd made myself a friend that I've come to trust more than any other I've ever had. Hell, he was the only guy in this whole world who DID give a damn about me."

"Hmm," Malicorne mulled, "well that doesn't make any sense."

"What?"

"You describe him like a saint while he seems to hate you, that doesn't make the least bit of sense." Jean sighed at that response.

"It's kind of a long story," he said.

"I know, I know, I've heard it all." he put his jug down, eyeing the slightly confused adolescent sitting across from him. Then he chuckled and continued: "He told me on the way here. Honestly, I can't believe how a girl like her, even if it's Zero Louise we're talking about, could fall for such a total wimp like you," he went on, waving his hand like chasing away a fly, not noticing the half hurt, half pissed expression on Jean's face," I mean I've met Halfling hoboes with more dignity than you! But in the end, I guess somebody like you wouldn't try to make a move his best friend's girlfriend, you don't seem like the type. Making her fall for you is out of the question."

"Besides," he continued "considering how unbelievably stupid she can be in some cases, I wouldn't put it beyond her to start fooling around with you like some sort of surrogate just because she's too stuck up to admit her feelings for him," he finished, delivering that last sentence with venom.

_Finally somebody in this world understands me! But does he have to be such an ass about it?_ Jean thought.

"But," Mal sighed, "I don't know if what I said really got through to him. He too can be extremely thickheaded at times. Sometimes I wonder if they're simply such a good match because of they're both so equally stupid. HAH! Equal in stupidity! That's something!" Then wine had clearly gone to his head now. "You know, there was this one time, when Saito came up with this insa-" and that was about as far as he got before a big jug came crashing down on his head, the jug cracking in the process.

"DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO SHUT UP?!" roared the drunken count, who then went back to listening to Saito's tales of his adventures in the bathtub.

Jean just looked at the unconscious walrus, who awoke moments later only to flutter his eyelids and let out a yawn that'd rival that of a hippo and then promptly fall asleep. Having nothing else to do, he turned to listen to Saito's stories, which only lasted for another half hour however, as both he and the count keeled over almost simultaneously and fell asleep too. The runaway familiar just sat there, grunting at the situation.

He then began the tiresome labour of erecting their tents; pulling them inside and tucking them too sleep. When done, having finally ensured everyone a warm night's slumber, he noticed that there was no room left for him, grunted again, and started to gather sticks and build a quick makeshift lean-to right beneath a tree, using the picnic blanket to cover himself with, he was just about to go to sleep when Malicorne started snoring heavily, making every chance of getting any sleep highly improbable at best, then when he'd finally stopped, it started raining too, quite heavily. He knew now that somebody high up there really, really didn't like him.

* * *

Serge Durant was a patient man, having lived for nearly 60 years (considered a feat in his hometown) he'd come to learn that restlessness never yielded anything good, and so had learnt to put up with whatever life had come to throw at him. Also, he was very laid-back, knowing from experience that anger and frustration never results in anything but a headache, and likewise, he had learned to enjoy life for what it is and make the best of what he has.

So it was with surprisingly pleasant feelings that he once again returned to Pordenfers, a place that he ultimately considered to be his second home. When first coming there he was horrified at the thought. In his first position as a priest he had to see over a church in a backwater village whose fame (or lack thereof) came solely from the notoriety and ungodliness of its denizens. Still, against all odds, he'd managed to keep its sole church in one piece through all those years, tending to the needs of the people in those times the town was populated.

Many times and under many different rulers had he been put in charge of the Pordenfers parish, each time having to deal with a completely different populace. Now, again, had his superiors sent him to this truly godforsaken place to restore church activity, for it had been heard that a new lord had been leased the land, and every land needed a church.

So once again would he repair the church, once again would he have to deal with the terrible conditions of Pordenfers and once again he would, in the end, have to leave the place let all his hard work go for naught. But it didn't matter to him anymore, he'd gotten used to it like a daily routine. In fact, he enjoyed it, he enjoyed the hard work and the challenge and the giving of hope to hopeless people. He even felt nostalgic as he watched the familiar scenery pass by through the window of his carriage. With him sat two apprentices and a novice, all of them priests in training, as it was his duty to make sure that they receive the best education that can be for a priest.

Yet another challenge he relished taking on.

"Brother Serge?" asked one of the apprentices.

"Yes?"

"How much farther is it to Pordenfers now?" The old priest chuckled at his colleague's question. An eager chap he was, full of passion for his work, but if there was one thing he lacked it was patience. _Boy is he going to get a hard time_, Serge though.

"Again your impatience," he said jokingly, smiling as he looked at him. "Be at ease, Brother Bernard, if memory serves me right, then we'll be at the village any minute now."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh yes, just take a look outside," he said and gestured for his apprentice to come over, which he did, and squatting in front of Serge he looked out the window to see a great old forest atop a steep hill. "Emerald Forest, is what you see there. So high and tight are the trees in there, they say, that when you walk in there in midday even during summer, the tree crowns so cover the sky that only meagre amounts of light can enter and all of the forest is painted in a glowing dark green."

"Ouah…!"

"And you see over there," he said, pointing at a distance which Bernard from his position couldn't possibly see, "there where the slope is less steep? That's the very edge of Pordenfers! So it shouldn't be long at all before we arrive." The young apprentice was trying in vain to catch sight of the place Serge had pointed out, but still nodded as if understanding. Serge smiled and the apprentice went back to his seat. _Always so full of life_, Serge thought. _That's why I like apprentices._

_

* * *

  
_

"No, Saito! You musn't…" Siesta pleaded, face beet red.

"Why? What's wrong?" Saito asked, moving his head closer to hers with every moment, looking at her longingly.

"N- nothing… I really want you to, it's just… I mean, what about Louise?" Saito stopped at the sound of her name, looking confused for a while. But the daze didn't last long, as soon he shook his head in negation.

"Louise is a concern of the past, my beloved. It is you that I want, it is you for whom I've yearned during all these long years. Please, don't deny me that," he looked at her, carrying a bereft expression on his face.

"Saito…" she whispered, following up with a slow nod. Saito then closed the distance between them and their lips locked in a vivid, exhilaratingly passionate kiss, she closed her eyes and let darkness embrace them both. Then, when she opened them again, she was met with the sight of Saito's closed eyes and relaxed face, the two of them still locked in the kiss, but it all felt different. Saito groaned, their lips shifting, and he opened his eyes to find his gaze fixed upon an opposite pair of eyes.

Then, at one and the same time, both of their eyes shot wide open.

* * *

"GAAAHH!... Ouch!... Oof!-" were the first sounds that Jean uttered that mormimg, as he abruptly awoke to a pair of bone-chilling screams. He jumped up only to rocket his head into the ceiling of his sorry excuse for a lean-to, which then promptly collapsed on its misfortunate maker. Shuffling the sticks out of his way, he stood up and clutched his head, reeling from his awful hangover.

"Ugh… feels like old times already…" he said to himself. He felt awful, as did his stomach and as he took a step forward, it decided to share that feeling with his throat.

_Oh shit…_

Jean quickly covered his mouth and hastily made his way over to the nearest couple of bushes, where behind he watched a rerun of his last meal, a process that he repeated when the putrid, sour smell of the orange mess struck his nostrils, and he continued to do so until there was nothing more for him left to dispose of. Lurching backwards and out of the bushes, he looked around himself in an attempt to ascertain his location, as he had no idea of where he was.

It was then that his ears caught the sound of two suspiciously familiar voices: he knew for sure that he'd heard them before but couldn't quite put his finger on who they belonged to, especially since his head felt like a needle cushion. Cursing his hangover, he staggered out onto an open field, which he also found oddly familiar. Looking at the two people, he narrowed his eyes into slits in an effort to concentrate. About half a minute later, his memory sparked into life and the memories came flushing back… well, all except for the most recent ones.

Which is why he was overjoyed at seeing his old friend Saito again.

"Saitooooo!" he hollered as he began running, almost tripping over his own feet. The two looked at him, their faces sporting a look of mild surprise before only seconds later contorting into of nausea. Jean then got to behold a third-person repeat of what he himself had gone through only minutes ago, but as fast as it'd started, it was already over, his two friends having already run to some place where they could empty their own bowels and spare themselves the embarrassment of doing in front of each other.

"Darn it… he must still be angry at me for that," the young servant muttered to himself. Now bereft of the only clues to his sorry state, he began to look around himself, hoping to find something else that could enlighten him of the events of the previous day. It didn't take long before he found something though. Walking over to it, he could make out a chequered quilt with crumbs, bottles and plates strewn all over it, and it was then that realization hit him like a wrecking ball.

"Oh yeah! I just became Saito's servant… and he's still pissed at me…," Jean said to himself triumphantly, before another realization dawned upon him whereupon he covered his face with his hands. "Aw crap, what have I gotten myself into."

* * *

After about an hour, the little group began walking back towards the keep, seeing no point in staying on the empty hill. The plan was to find some intact building within the ghost town that encircled the hill of the keep, lest they'd be forced to sleep in the castle. All of them however, were still plagued by headaches.

They reached the town after only a little while of walking, but could from first glance already determine that none of the buildings were in manageable shape. All the wooden ones were dark brown or even black in some parts, clearly affected by moisture, and a closer look would also yield one the discovery of entire societies of insects and other repulsive creatures residing within the hollow pieces of timber. Those built with stone stood in better shape, but a more thorough examination showed that these were little more than death traps: in many places, the mortar was completely gone or showed sign of heavy erosions, while some of the stones where jutting out of the house or had even fallen out of the wall itself, creating gaping holes that only revealed an even more decayed interior.

They'd caught a lucky day however, because unbeknownst to them, the streets where relatively solid: only a tiny bit muddy. Usually due to the heavily moist climate of Pordenfers, the streets would be completely unworkable, the ground so soft that one would sink into the mud all the way to the knees.

"This feels like a waste of time," Jean droned.

"Stop whining!" Saito retorted.

"Erm, Saito," Charles began, feeling uneasy about using the Baron's given name, "have you considered taking a look at the church?"

"What church?" Saito inquired.

"That one." Charles then pointed at a tower that looked blackened in contrast to the blue sky, with the devastated red tiled roof only barely discernable.

"Oh… that one... Well sure, probably better than wandering these streets all aimlessly."

"Then let me show you the way, Baron," Charles nodded respectfully and took the lead. After a few minutes of walking, which included climbing over a collapsed two-story house that'd blocked a street, the little gang came upon what seemed to be a very old church. It's stone, once probably brilliant grey, was now blackened to the point where one might've thought it was a Satanist prayer hall.

"Do you think anybody's inside?" Jean asked. As if on cue, the church bells began ringing.

"I think that answers our question," Malicorne replied over the bells.

* * *

"Father, could you be so kind and take care of this for me?" Serge looked at the tiny thing that his apprentice had pointed at, chuckling when he saw it.

"Of course, my child, stand aside," he smiled and went ahead, stepping on the house spider and squishing it to death, making sure to drag around his foot on the ground so that his apprentice could see the gooey remains of it and feel secure again.

"Thank you, Father!"

"No need to," he replied with a wave of his hand just as the bells stopped chiming. Shortly after that, he heard the wooden doors to the church creak open and a group of five people enter. "Ah! We've got guests!"

Saito was examining the interior as he slowly walked ahead, taking note of every little decoration and fresco within in, all withered and worn, but the place still looked in far better shape than any other building in the town. He then noticed the two men, one elderly and one looking to be in his early twenties, in brown robes with ropes tied around their waists. He greeted them with his customary "Hello!", a gesture he used to show his indifference to social class.

"Greetings," Serge replied and bowed, his apprentice doing the same. "I presume that You must be the new Baron, correct?"

"Hiraga Saito, yes." The priest seemed a bit surprised and mumbled something to himself before continuing.

"Most pleasant to meet you, Baron, I am Serge Durant, the priest and caretaker of this church, and this is my good apprentice, Laurent." Laurent bowed respectfully before the entourage. "He's a shy and soft-spoken young man and has a fear of spiders, but he's very well-meaning and one of the most gentle souls you'll be able to find here in Pordenfers. My other apprentice, Bernard, is the one who was ringing the bells only a moment ago, he's cleaning tower at the moment. Like Laurent here, he's also well meaning, but he has a certain tendency to… overdo things, if you will, and that doesn't end well at all times. I just hope you will have a little understanding towards him, he's a very eager young man and deep down, no matter what he does, he always means well," the priest explained in his soft, soothing voice, his hand clasped in front of him and his kind eyes focused on the Baron in front of him.

"I'm sure they won't be any trouble," Charles responded before Saito could, stepping forth. "On another note, it's good to see you again, old friend."

"Charles!" The priest exclaimed fondly and hugged the Count, both of the laughing heartily. "Same here, my friend, it's been too long since we last saw each other! I see that tame has been far more merciful on your fine figure than with this ragged heap," he said and gestured towards himself. "My my… to think that the first time we met, you were but a boy, like this freshman here," he reminisced, pointing at Laurent. "Time goes too fast, indeed."

"Indeed it does," Charles smiled.

"You two know each other?" Saito asked.

"Oh yes, my child!" Serge replied enthusiastically. "I was the priest here in earlier times when young Charles here had his first missions, he always used to come in here whenever he had any trouble and boy did he have that! It isn't easy being an advisor to all those poor souls sentenced to rule over this place and like all else, he needed to find solace. We simply provided him with it. And such a fine man he is now, I remember the lively discussions we had back then, and he would always chip in whenever the church needed help with one thing or the other. I tell you, my child, this is one of the most hardworking, enduring and clever men the royal court has to offer, no matter what others say. You'll be glad to have him in your company, I can assure you."

"I'm sure I will," Saito replied, glancing at Charles who was all smiles at this point, before he went ahead to introduce the other members of hid party, each who bowed after their name. "This is my good friend Malicorne d'Arnaud le Grande d'Albret and these two are my servants Jean Donnedieu-Tiboulet and Siesta Celeste."

"A most pleasant fellowship," the priest said and smiled at them like one would to a grandchild. "Now, how may I be of use to You?"

"We're just looking for a stable place to stay aside from the castle."

"Well, the church is a bit messy as it is now, so I would not suggest you lodging here for the time being, as there is still quite some work left to be done. However, if memory serves me right, the old tavern at the main square should be relatively intact."

"What do you mean by 'relatively'"? Malicorne inquired.

"Meaning it won't collapse over your heads," Serge answered with his ever-present smile.

"Good then," Charles said, "if you will my Lord, I'll guide you to it right now."

"Good, let's go then. Thank you for your help, Father," Saito said.

"I'm glad I could be of some help," the elderly man bowed as the Baron's fellowship exited the church.

* * *

**A.N: Well, this is it so far. I don have a draft for two additional stories prepared, but the continuation of this is going to rely a lot on reader support, so if you'd like to see this story continued... Please, review, comment, nag on me, whatever! I'll be most happy for anything that you folks write and I'll be very much grateful for any advice you could give me on how to improve my writing. Suggestions to the story are also very welcome! So please! Review! And thanks for reading! :)  
**

**  
Also, a huge thanks to XxMisaki EndouxX for betareading my stories! This thing was released partly due to you, so I cannot be grateful enough! :)  
**


	6. Planting the Seeds

**CHAPTER SIX: PLANTING THE SEEDS**

"There we go!" Jean said as he dropped a bunch of scrolls and books onto an old wooden table. It'd been two days since they'd arrived at Pordenfers and they hadn't done much but inspecting the town and otherwise lazy about. Today however, Saito had decided to get to matters and so Charles had retrieved every document concerning the shire from the local church's archives: maps, plans, blueprints, graphs, reports, everything. Since the tavern was the only stable place in town besides the church, they'd chosen it to serve as their provisional headquarters.

"So… this is all we've got to work with…" Malicorne sighed in exasperation over the amount of material.

"Huh? I thought you were used to these kinds of things, being a noble and all," Saito commented.

"Me? Oh no! I've got other people who do that for me," he replied.

"Ah… then… does anybody here know where to begin?"

"Well, these houses kind of look like shit, so maybe you should start with those," Jean suggested. The other nobles in the room flinched at the young man's inappropriate choice of words, while Saito grunted at the mere fact that it was Jean that'd spoken up, but choose to follow his suggestion anyway.

"I see you point," he grumbled before continuing. "Very well then, as we've all been able to see, every single building in this town seems to be thoroughly rotten, so I believe that we can all agree that there's no use in trying to repair them," he said as he fished forth an unfurled one of the scrolls in the pile, the others nodding and humming in agreement at his statement.

"However, if we are to demolish all these buildings, we'll be having a large area to work with…" he said as he looked over the map, sneering at the size of the town. "It'd take us forever to finish… Does anybody have any ideas on how we could do it any faster?"

"If I may, my Baron," Charles began, "I myself am quite skilled in the terrestrial arts of magic. Using my skills I would be able to raze every house in this entire town with a simple minor earthquake spell. However, the castle would also be put in significant risk of collapsing, should we opt to use that method."

"Never mind the castle, what about the church and tavern?"

Saito questioned, the Count's face showing obvious surprise at his younger lord's complete disregard for his own home.

"They would undoubtedly crumble along with the rest of the town, I'm afraid."

"Then earthquakes are not an option. The church and tavern are the only hospitable buildings here for miles, I'll not have them fall for anything. Besides, I'd like to have at least something to remind of this town's past, some cultural heritage. The settlers need to know that this town has some history behind it."

"But, my Bar… erm, Saito, what of the castle?"

"We'll deal with that later," Saito answered his advisor, smirking in a way that told one that he had a plan for it. "Now, any other ideas?"

…

"We could sure use some manpower," Malicorne commented.

"What about it Charles? You said you were an Earth mage, couldn't you be able to summon some golems or the like to help out?"

"I could, but unfortunately that wouldn't be nearly enough. Golems are intended more as bodyguards than anything else, therefore normal golem summoning spells won't allow for that many to be summoned at one and the same time."

"Hmm… and I'd wanted the ground cleared by the time the settlers arrived, but I guess that's impossible. Oh well, we'll just have to let them do it themselves, it shouldn't be too much trouble."

"Certainly not! It's expected of a subject that he tends to his own needs himself. We may have to provide food and protection, but we cannot do everything for them." Saito hummed absentmindedly at the Count's response whilst examining the town map.

…

"The wood was rotten right?" he suddenly asked.

"As far as I saw it, yes," Malicorne answered.

"Does anybody know roughly what these houses are made of then?"

"I do," his advisor began. "Like most houses in this part of the country, they're made primarily of wood with a stone base. However, some of the more outlying buildings are made of clay; there are several such in the western reaches of the shire owned by freemen. The only buildings in the town that are built with stone walls are the castle, the church and this tavern."

"I see, that means there won't be much material for us to reuse. We'll have to order stone and bricks from… wherever that's ordered from, we'll be needing mortar too. Then we can have the settlers cut the trees in the forest for wood, there seems to be a lot of those here anyway."

"What about the roads then?" Malicorne asked.

"Ah yes, good point? What about them, Charles? Any other solid roads besides the square"

"Aside from the old stairway leading to the castle, there are none, sadly."

"Then we're going to need stone for that too. However, I want those cubic stones then, none of that rounded nonsense, I hate those!"

"As you wish."

"How about asphalt?" Everybody looked at Jean as if he was a three-headed monkey.

"Idiot, what makes you think they'd know about asphalt in this age?"

"The Chinese had it long before the West discovered it, several hundred years in fact. I thought you of all people would know, being Japanese and all."

"Just shut up!" Jean shrugged defiantly at Saito's command with his arms crossed, but did as he was told. The other two nobles were utterly clueless as to what they'd been talking about. Just as Saito was about to continue, he felt that he'd had enough of Jean's presence in the room. "What are you doing in here anyway? Shouldn't you be out working on something?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, go help Siesta with whatever she's doing."

The servant in question was about to retort with "Why don't you go do it yourself?" when he remembered that he was Saito's servant after all, and instead came up with a better question: "But I don't even know where she is?"

"She's at the church helping the monks out with some renovations, I think," Malicorne answered, his tone perfectly neutral, even sounding friendly in contrast to Saito's hostility.

"Thanks, I'll be gone then," Jean said and then promptly left the building, starting to vex himself on Saito's hostile disposition towards him.

"Well, now that he's out of the way…" Saito continued as he opened a book from the pile, "we should get onto the next matter. I see this place doesn't have much in the way of natural resources?" Saito questioned, looking at Charles for answers, since he already seemed to know just about everything about the place.

"Not too much, I'm afraid. Pordenfers was never such a settlement to begin with. Actually, the population has always been struggling with food shortages. Keeping them fed will be a difficult task, for as I said, this soil isn't the most fertile in the land. Neither do we have any precious minerals."

_I just hope we don't have to sink to hunter-gatherer levels to stay alive,_ Saito thought.

"What about the marsh then?" At this, the Count observer raised his eyebrow.

"What about it?"

"Aren't there any fish there we can sustain ourselves on? Or is it possible to turn it into paddies for rice farming?"

"Rice?" Saito was a first a bit confounded to heard the two nobles repeat the word so questioningly, but then he remembered that since Tristain was more or less analogous to mediaeval Western Europe, rice was most likely virtually unknown here.

"Never mind that… what about game?"

"That there is plenty of. Unfortunately, since they're mostly found in the thick Emerald Forest, hunting is significantly harder a task than in the other, much thinner forests of Tristain."

"Damn! What about berries?"

_Guess we do have to turn into hunter-gatherers after all._

"While there is scarcely any fruit in the shire, the Emerald Forest is filled with berries of all sorts. Though I assure you, that won't be nearly enough to sustain the populace. Not even we would survive on that." Hearing those words, Saito's shoulders sacked, he felt like giving up, the whole endeavour seemingly hopeless. Charles couldn't help but smirk at the Baron's frustration, even though he liked him.

"Let us… leave that for now then, we'll think of something later."

_Just as I expected. In a few days, his spirit will be completely broken, I can feel it already,_ Charles thought. _Too bad though, he's such a nice lad._

"So… farms are completely out of the question then?" Saito asked, hoping in desperation that wasn't the case.

"Actually, Baron… Saito, it's not completely impossible, merely very, very difficult, but it can work. Rye has been grown here before, though it requires a lot more work and care than usual, while barley can grow in the westernmore parts of the shire. Anything else however, is out of the question. That excepting the soil on the castle hill, which is very good; the only good soil in the domain in fact. It has always made for a perfect demesne."

"Demesne?"

"It's a piece of farmland directly around the manor or keep," Malicorne answered. "It's controlled by the lord of the land who then pays people who work the land for him. They then get a small share of the food produced as well as money to survive."

"Also, like I said, the soil farther out in the western reaches of the shire has traditionally always acted as the bread basket of this domain," Charles added.

"Let me guess… there's a catch, right?"

"I'm afraid so. While it does provide enough food for a hundred or two, it's just barely enough to keep them alive. Usually, this shire ends its life in two ways: either the populace starves to death or they revolt and either kill the lord or die trying."

Saito felt like ripping his hairs of.

"Fine, whatever! We'll grow what we can, hunt like hell and pick berries, then we'll figure something out in the meantime. Now, on to the next matter before I go insane!"

"I don't think we've gone over out defences yet," came Malicorne's reply.

"And we're lucky in that aspect!" Charles pointed out. "This settlement was originally founded with the intention of acting as an outpost to keep marauders out and stave off a potential attack from Germania. As you can see here," he picked out a scroll among the pile and unfurled it, revealing a very detailed topographic map over Pordenfers, "the town is located right inbetween a marsh and a thick forest. An enemy army will be forced to pass through the town to get to the other side, meaning that numbers won't matter."

"I see," Saito nodded.

"Furthermore, since the castle is located on this hill, we will have the tactical advantage over any enemy, as all the surrounding lands are relatively low lying and flat. We'll be able to take out a significant portion of them before they can even come near the town."

"What about ammunition?"

"Sine the purpose of this place is military in nature, or at least intended as such, we can simply requisition more from the Ministry of War, with a large discount at that!"

"But then again, we'll also need to pay the soldiers, and that money has to come from somewhere," Malicorne observed. "While we may have enough from the royal grant now to pay for everything, sooner or later our coffers will run dry. We'll need something to generate a sufficient income from if we are to keep this place up and running."

"Very astute, Count d'Arnaud, a source of income will definitely be necessary for our survival. Would you be so kind and hand me that large book over there?" Charles asked, gesturing at a large, red book at the far side of the table, which Mal promptly handed to him.

"This book details every natural resource in this shire, along with every single little detail about them. The two most common sources of income for past rulers have been timber, of which plenty can be taken from the Emerald Forest, and gravel, which can be extracted from pits at the shores of Lake Lagdorian."

"But won't that upset the water spirit?" Saito asked concerned.

"Not particularly. All we'll be doing is dig for sand after all. It's been done before and she's never had any complaints thus far, so I can't see why she would now."

"How about fishing there? Maybe we can supply some more food for the people that way?" Malicorne suggested, something which was quickly shot down by Charles.

"That however," he said, snapping his index finger for emphasis, "would anger the water spirit considerably."

Malicorne just sighed, while Saito growled.

"Does every other noble also have to go through all this?"

"No, most nobles hire other people to manage their properties for them," Charles responded.

"GAAAHHHHH!"

After having had lunch following the meeting, the group set about their business. Malicorne and Charles were per Saito's orders supposed to demolish as many buildings as possible before the settlers arrived. But, as they were forbidden from using any greater-area spells, they were forced to deal with each building one by one, which they much to their dismay would soon come to realize was a quite tedious task.

As thanks for helping with the restoration of their church, Serge and his fellows would renovate the tavern, sparing the newcomers at least some work.

Jean on the other hand didn't get away as easily: his job was to remove any old mortar from the rocks of the demolished houses so that they could be reused as building material. While he clearly saw the logic in his assignment, he was still annoyed that he had to do it all by himself, especially when he could have Charles or Malicorne do it faster with some water spells. Siesta had been assigned the easy task of just shuttling the stones from the rubble to him, so why should he have to put up with doing some arduous task like this? So went his thoughts. The man in charge himself was away on "important business", as he'd expressed it.

"Important business my ass!" Jean fumed, talking to himself. "He's probably just using it as another excuse to slack off while we're doing all the hard work. Damn title's made him all high and mighty…"

"Is something wrong Jean?" He hadn't noticed Siesta coming up right beside him with the next load of rocks and so he jumped in surprise when she startled him.

"Wha- what? No, no! Nothing at all! Erm… " He tried to come up with something else than what he'd been thinking about, knowing that even though she harboured little ill will against him, she was definitely more in favour of Saito. "It's just that all this scrubbing and hacking is giving me blisters and the pain is really bothering me," he told a half-truth. His hand was indeed full of blisters and almost every little action carried with it that burning pain that would turn anybody into a pissant.

"Oh, so that's it. Though it sounded more as if you were angry about something… or with somebody," she prodded, a bad habit she'd developed after Saito's departure.

_Goddamn her nosiness!_

"Uh… well," he stalled, keeking at her to see if she had any ulterior motives with her question. After having lived under Louise's rule for several years, he knew exactly how to deduce from someone's face if they carried any malintent. However, he found only innocent curiosity in the eyes of Siesta, and so he let himself ease up a bit.

"Well, actually… it's Saito. I just think he's treating me a bit unfairly… I know he's really pissed at what he thinks I did with Louise, I would've been too had someone done the same to me, but it's been six years already. Don't you think this is just a bit too much," he confessed as Siesta loaded off the rocks for him.

"I can understand how you're feeling, but still Jean, what you did was a pretty serious thing. It's not something you can expect somebody to easily forgive," she answered him in a gentle tone, yet with enough force to try and make him understand his wrongs. Only in Jean's mind, he hadn't done any wrongs.

"I've told you already, I didn't do her! Neither did I make out with her, not even once! I swear on my very soul I didn't do anything wrong! Why's it so hard for you guys to understand?!"

"Well, you two seemed rather close, and being all alone with her like that… it does give reason to believe-"

"Believe what? That I lack morals? She was my best friend's girlfriend for crying out loud! I'm not the type of guy who goes behind people's backs! And if that isn't enough to convince you, I can tell you that she's a raging dominatrix, the Queen of Pain! Now tell me, who in their right mind WOULD want to go to bed with her?!" he almost yelled, practically fuming at this point. Siesta was simply confused.

"What's a dominatrix?" She asked innocently, making Jean facepalm for having put himself in an uncomfortable position. He didn't really want to be the one explaining that to he, she'd probably take him for a weirdo if he did, or so he thought.

Ultimately though, he did it anyway.

"WHAT?!" was Siesta's reaction.

"See, now do you get me?"

"But… I had no idea she… was like that."

"No idea?! Come on! She hits me, kicks me, whips me, pushes me around, stomps my head into the ground and tries to blow me into smithereens whenever she doesn't sentence me to hard labour! How and when did it NOT occur to you that she was that type?!"

…

"I see you point," she finally said.

"So, do you believe me now?"

"Well, I guess… yes. Still, he doesn't and I don't think he will either." Jean sighed at that.

"Yeah, I know, he's just so damn stubborn, been like that for as long as I've known him. I swear, if someone would've shot him the head and nailed his heart with a pike, he'd still be living because he'd be too stubborn to admit he's dead." No matter how gruesome the description, Siesta laughed at the blonde's rant.

"You're right. I guess that's why I like him though," she admitted.

"Aye, I've noticed. I guess it's a good thing to have in the end."

…

"You've been at him for a long time, eh?" Siesta hummed and nodded her head at Jean's question.

"Since long before you came here."

"Yet still you have only come this far," he mused, making Siesta pout. Evidently, she was not happy about it.

"Stop teasing me about it."

"I'm not teasing you, rather I'm astounded over how time after time he's been able to pick Louise over you, even though you outmatch her in every single way. It's more like… I feel sorry for you."

"What do you mean by that?" she eyed him warily. She wasn't the easily offended type, but neither was she naïve.

"That even though you've tried so hard, he's only let you this far... It is not your fault Siesta, not by any means. But I'm just wondering… considering that he's never… properly returned your feelings… do you still love him?"

…

"I do," she answered, her voice barely audible.

…

…

"Then I suggest you take your chance now," he finally spoke.

"Eh?"

"I said you should take your chance now. Now that he's finally back from years of lonely wandering and Louise is nowhere near, this is the opportune moment for you to confess!"

"What?!" Her face turned beet red within a second.

"Don't shy off! You say you've loved him for years and you say you still do. If you're so certain about your feelings, you should have no doubt about doing it now! This is your best chance at finally claiming him!"

"B-but… I couldn't!" She defended, her perspiring face flushed redder than the flag of Soviet Russia.

"Why?! Don't stall! You'll only let this chance slip away!"

"W- well… he's a noble now and I-… I'm just his maid, so I don't th-"

"Think what? That he wouldn't accept you because of that? Come on now! That isn't true and I know you know it. That man has never ever made any difference between noble or commoner, so why would he start now?"

Siesta sat thinking for a moment, unresponding to Jean's question, unsure of what to say. Though he'd been perfectly right in what he'd said, she just couldn't get herself to make a move on Saito… not now, she didn't know why, she just couldn't. Jean noticed that her position remained hesitant and facepalmed in response. He couldn't believe anybody could be so apprehensive.

_After six years, she still isn't sure enough to bring herself to that__! What's wrong with her?!_

He couldn't for all the world figure out what it might be, but he felt that he couldn't just sit by and let everything pass by him anymore, he had to do something.

So he turned to Siesta, lifting one leg and putting it on the other side of the log he was sitting on, then firmly gripped both of her arms and looked her dead in the eyes.

"Listen to me! Your letting the chance of your life fly right by you! I'm telling you, confess to him already! If you don't do it now, I promise, you won't get any other chance at it, life won't give you one!" he said, sweating profusely as he did.

_Shit! What am I doing? This probably sounds totally __awkward, coming from me of all people too! _

His train of thought sped away at hypersonic speeds, trailing off into completely different areas than where it'd started.

"Why?" His train of though was violently derailed however, crashing into the side of a mountain as Siesta spoke that one word.

"Eh?"

"Why? Why are you doing this? Why do you even care?" she said. He could notice a pair of nascent tears in each of her eyes, it was obvious he was making he feel uncomfortable.

_Yeah… why do I? Now that I think about it, it's really none of my business and it hasn't ever been… so why am I so dead set on getting them together?_

He pondered the matter for a good time, all the while still locking the maid's arms in a strong grip.

…

"Because I care…"

"What?"

"I know it's not a good answer at all, it's none of my business really, but I just care. I care about you Siesta and I care about him too. It's just… I've seen you going after him for so long, you've really tried your hardest to come across to him yet you've always lost to someone as Louise. Louise, who constantly beats and berates him for every little thing, who can hardly even admit her own feelings for him even though she'd felt them for so long. You've treated him better in every aspect and yet he's always chosen her… it's just not fair." He loosened his grip on her as he spoke, not wanting to hurt her too much.

"Jean…"

"I care because you're my friend and that's what friends do, they care. Now thing is, Louise is still after him, just like you are, so don't you go assuming that the way is completely clear for you now. I'm sure that sooner or later, she'll know that he's holding up here and then she'll simply come over and try and take him back. And you know what? She probably will, because if I know Saito, that idiot is just going to forgive her again and fall right back into her arms, and then your chance is going to go lost… FOREVER! That's exactly how it's going to end and I'll be damned if I let that happen again!"

_Damn… that was cheesy… real cheesy__… almost as bad as one of those Brazilian soap operas! God I hate those!_

Siesta pondered his words for a while, still uncertain. Jean himself was trying to figure out why in the world she was so apprehensive now when she had no qualms about openly showing her affections and declaring her love for him six years earlier. When he'd first come to Halkeginia, he'd first thought they were a couple, only to find out they weren't…

And that's when he realized where the problem lied, or at least so he thought.

"Look, just because he's rejected you once before doesn't mean he's going to do it now. That was a different time under different circumstances, that's all gone and changed now, you won't have to worry about a thing."

"You sure he would accept my feelings then?" she asked him and looked at him with a doubtful yet somewhat hopeful expression.

"Dead certain."

She made a sigh of relief and regained her composure, her eyes bearing a new look determination. Looking at him with a serious expression and nodding, she hummed in affirmation.

"Then I'll try, Jean. I promise you, I'll try my best."

"And I'll be rooting for you, all the way."

They looked at each other with confident gazes, like two relay runners set on winning. Then Siesta stood up and was about to leave, intent on capturing her prey, when something struck her mind, which made her stop in an instant.

"What is it?" Jean asked.

"I just remembered something."

"Well, what?"

"Saito isn't here."

"Well, where is he then?" She turned around to answer him.

"He said he was going away on some important business, when I asked him."

"Oh yeah! That!" Jean remembered, the irritation from before instantly returning with the memory. "That's what had me pissed before! You know, for some reason I can't believe that it's anything but an excuse to lazy off. I wonder what the hell he's doing now anyway."

"I'm glad he we finally get a chance to meet under better circumstances, Baron Hiraga."

"Likewise, Count Motte."

"Pray tell, what is it that brings you here?"

"Well, if it is all fine with You, I've come to propose to you a trade, one that I think that you will find most… 'beneficial'."

"Is that so? Tell me, what is this You have to offer?" the Count wondered, his questioning answer bearing with it a sly tone in addition to an equally sly face. Saito just smiled even slier at his question. To the random observer, it'd seem as though the two were engaged in a contest to determine who could act the sliest of them.

"It might not seem to be much at first glance, but if memory serves me right, I remember You having a certain interest in these…" Saito replied as he produced a book bound in thick leather from a bag hanging at his side. The Count was surprised to say the least and he wondered just what the mundane Baron might have to offer him, if not…

"Wait! Is that… you don't mean…"

"Indeed, my good Count, another artefact for your… extensive collection."

"May I… examine it?"

"Certainly," he said as he opened the cover and put the book on the table for the noble to browse through.

"Amazing… how did You come over this?"

"As You might know, I was sent out by Her Highness to retrieve any number of otherworldly artefacts that I could find. Suffice to say, my search yielded me finds that Her Highness in her own honest opinion could… do without. Thus, the Ministry of Research entrusted them to my care."

"I see. And it's.. it's in Albionese! This is incredible!"

"Is it not? However, Count Motte, I didn't come here to do charity," Saito said and closed the book right before the Count's eyes. "This is a business proposition, I do not expect to leave empty-handed."

"Erm… of course not, Baron Hiraga. Please, what is it that You desire?"

"You should understand, Count Motte, that these items are very difficult to come by. It will thus not be unreasonable of me to demand something of great value in return."

"I'm fully aware of that, Baron, I'm no fool. Now, would You please reveal what it is You want?" Motte was now beginning go get annoyed at the Baron before him, it seemed as though he thought that he needed to explain everything to him.

_I'm a Count for Brimir's sake, of course I'd know that! I wasn't born yesterday!_

"Then, I assume it shouldn't be to unreasonable of me to ask that you free… some 60 households from their oaths and let them come with me."

"Sixty households?! You can't be serious!"

"Oh, I thought that perhaps considering your vast property, that might be a rather humble request, but oh well. I'll be taking this somewhere else then, there are others who've expressed their interest in this," Saito said as he stood up from the armchair he began to slowly stand up from the armchair he'd been sitting in.

"Wait! Please! I'll reconsider!"

"Oh?"

"Tell me… sixty is all you want them?" Motte asked with a defeated sigh.

"To be honest with you, Count Motte, I had originally intended to have twice as much, but since we are such good acquaintances, I thought I'd make you a kinder offer," he lied. Freeing sixty households was an outrageous demand and he knew it. Not to mention it was illegal to trade in serfs: the households he had mentioned had personally granted him the right to speak in their stead to free them, thus it was possible for him to buy their freedom, but even that bordered on the unlawful. However, in his desperation, the Count seemed to have forgotten that, and as long as Saito was able to convince him that he was being favoured, he didn't mind. "Others however, have already expressed their willingness to give me even more than that."

The Count was sweating profusely.

…

"Very well, I'll release those sixty households from their duties," he gave in. Pulling a document and a quill from afar using his magics, he signed a piece of paper and handed it to Saito. When having ensured that the contents of it didn't differ anything from their agreements, he calmly rolled it up and put it away in his cloak.

"I'm glad we could come to an agreement, Count Motte."

"Ah…" the red faced Count nodded, already browsing through his latest acquisition.

Exactly at that time, the doors opened and a beautiful young maid with shoulder-length red hair entered the room. She couldn't have been much older than Saito herself.

"Your bath is ready, Milord."

"Ah… good…" he replied absentmindedly, continuing to skim though the porno mag.

It was then that Saito got an idea.

"Count Motte!" he called, Motte a looked at him, a bit surprised.

"Do you thing you could also give me her?" he gestured at the maid, who now bore an expression of surprise coupled with fear.

The lewd Count glanced at her, then at Saito, then back at his magazine. Flipping a few pages, he smiled and nodded.

"Fine, you take her. Mariette! From hereon, you're now freed of your duties and responsibilities to me and are to please this gentleman here in any way he wishes, understood?"

"Err… Yes, Count Motte!" she replied, feeling a bit panicked.

_Not another pervert!__ He'll probably be even worse than Motte…_ she thought, feeling her hope fade away.

"See her as a gift, Baron," Motte winked and gave Saito a sly look as the Japanese Baron left.

**LATER BACK IN PORDENFERS**

"Ah… that was some nice tea!" Malicorne exhaled, leaning back on his wooden chair.

"I must agree, that tea you made was really wonderful, Mademoiselle," Charles added.

"Really, it isn't much at all."

"No need to be humble, this is truly some very fine tea," he said, seeming very pleased. "What was you name again?"

"Siesta."

"Siesta, eh? That's an odd name… Are you from the south? Romalia, perhaps?"

"No, my Lord, I'm out of Tarbes, my family lives there too."

"Tarbes, eh? That's were the war between Albion and Tristain broke out, was is not?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"I see, it must have been difficult for your family…" he said with a solemn tone. He knew how war affected the common man, so he couldn't keep himself from feeling a bit of sympathy, despite how much his fellow nobles (present company excepted) looked down upon it.

"Yes, it was. Our crops were burned and almost all of our livestock died in the attack. Life's been very hard on them ever since, but it's getting better, slowly."

"I'm glad to hear that. I hope they'll be able to fully recover someday, that war was indeed a horrible thing. I pray that such a thing may never happen again." Coming from a noble, who were supposed to gladly risk their lives for Queen and country, such words were outright blasphemous. However, he knew that he had no honour, already having lost it in what was surely counted amongst the most outrageous blunders in human history, so nobody besides commoners ever cared for his opinion anyway.

"Thank you, my Lord." Siesta smiled, feeling glad that someone important actualy cared about her.

_Exactly, only commoners._

In fact, those were the only people he could relate to anymore. While his title may still have remained, everything else that goes with it was gone. He was the Count of Artois, a province no longer Tristainian due to his naïveté, and without a land to tie to the name, the title became devoid of meaning.

In a way, the title was more of a way to ridicule him than anything else.

"Speaking of praying, isn't this the time for mass?" Malicorne asked, dragging the dishonoured noble out of his self-deprecating bog of thoughts.

"Indeed it is. I believe Father Durant will be holding one over at the church,"

"Then we should be going," Malicorne answered and headed out the door, followed by Charles and Siesta, everyone but Jean left for the services, leaving the blonde man alone with his cup of tea.

"Hm! Didn't even notice me," he snorted as he took another sip of his hot, red beverage. "Then again, I wouldn't want to go to church anyway." He leaned back onto his chair. "Better they didn't, I might've ended up with the Inquisition after me, like what happened with Tifa that day… what was it, six year ago?"

…

"Six years…" he sighed.

…

…

…

…

"What happened to her anyway?" he asked himself, starting a dialogue with himself, a habit he'd gotten into during the six years he'd been stuck on the alien world he'd fallen onto, under the "care" of Louise.

"Last I heard, she went to the royal palace after Saito left," he replied to himself, altering his voice and tone a little to give himself the sense that he was actually talking to somebody else than himself.

"Yeah… hasn't been much news about her since… six years…"

"That's how long we've been here… stuck on this godforsaken rock of all worlds…"

"Aye… away from home… I wonder what mom and dad must think of me…"

"They probably think that we're dead or something… having disappeared like that… everybody else will probably think that as well…"

"Hm… I guess all I have to look forward to then, is a future here…"

"And what kind of future is that?"

"One of sweat, blood and tears… hard labour it seems," he chuckled to himself, joking about his own predicament. "Still, it beats being whipped at and blown into the skies. I'll manage."

…

"Still, that's not the kind of future I want!"

"Yeah, it sucks big time, but what other choice do I have? Sure, I can go back to the academy and try to make something of my life, like becoming a chef or something, but then I'd most likely just end up having Louise making my days a living Hell again."

…

"How about going home?" He laughed at that question. Different voice or not, it was still he who'd said that to himself. He already knew what his own answer would be, the whole discussion was almost pointless.

"And how the hell am I supposed to do that? It's not like there're any flight services with 'Destination: Earth' anywhere here. Let's just face it, I'm stranded on this stupid medieval fantasy Earth look-alike for the rest life. I'm simply fucked."

"Well, go look for it then?"

"Hm?"

Truth to be told, the only reason he still kept going on like this, debating with himself, is because he was divided in his own mind. He could decide if he was going to do one or the other. An indecisive man, quite simply. Also, he felt that should he keep his thoughts only in his head, he'd go insane, so he spoke them out. The irony of it all was that what he did to stop himself from losing his sanity only made him look exactly what he was trying to avoid.

"It's better than staying here for the rest of our lives. I mean just look at us, we're pathetic, slaving away at the behalf of others!"

"True, if I live my life out here, I'll just go away as another nameless commoner, or perhaps even less, an absolute nobody. I'll be treated like shit for the rest of my life. At least back home I had a future I could actually look forward too. I mean, not that I had any plan, but I had possibilities! I could be a writer… or a photographer… or a chef in some nice restaurant… or I could go away doing charity in Mali or Cambodia or whatever. At least I had something to do I know I'd love."

"Exactly! So why sit around here?"

"Because if I leave Saito, I'll either starve to death or be whipped to death."

…

"Heh, some life this turned out to be…"

…

…

…

"You know what?" he said to himself, or his advocatus diaboli persona, whatever it was. "Fuck this place! I'm not going to stay here for the rest of my life! I'll find a way home, if it so is the last thing I do!" He slammed his fist in the table decisively, only to pick it up a second land and clutch it as it hurt.

"You know though, you won't leave Saito," he said to himself again. How funny, seconds ago his alter ego had been suggesting the opposite, now it simply switched sides, as always. He'd made that persona to criticize every move he made, so as to hopefully avoid blunders. Whether it was a conscious decision or not to start talking to himself like this however, he couldn't remember anymore.

"Nay, he's my friend, he's just misunderstood everything, that's all. I know he'll come to his senses soon, I know he will…" he said to himself. Had anyone seen and heard him at this moment, they'd think he was deranged, as in seriously mentally ill. "We'll be friends again… soon."

…

"Hm, whatever you say."

…

…

…

And that was it, he didn't have anything else to say to himself, end of conversation. Feeling a bit dry from all the talking though, he took up his teacup, intending on finishing whatever was left in it.

"Gahh! It's gone cold!"

**MEANWHILE**

**SOMEWHERE IN TRISTAIN**

"Don't worry, I'm not gong to hurt you," Saito said to the maid in front if him. They were sitting in an open carriage en route to Pordenfers and she'd been silent the entire journey. Being past midnight, it was cold out there and so she was draped in a brown silk cloth to help fend of the cold and even though it wasn't perhaps the most effective solution, the results were satisfactory enough. The stars were shining brightly above them and the lanterns on each side of the carriage illuminated their faces, the lights seemingly dancing about as the carriage rocked from side to side.

"Right, I've heard that one before," she mocked him. She didn't care much for punishment as lords rarely beat their pleasure girls for fear that any bruise or injury would tarnish the beauty for which they were adored. Thus, she could afford some sarcasm, hell, some lords even liked it.

"My intention isn't to make you into my pleasure girl, if that's what you think."

"Oh really? Then why did you bring me along?" she asked sarcastically.

"Because I don't like the idea of people being used like that to pleasure others," he answered determinedly. The look she gave him was one of the purest disbelief.

"Of all the nobles I've ever met, you surely are the weirdest yet," she said offhandedly. She didn't know why, maybe because he seemed younger but she somehow felt at ease around him.

"I haven't always been one you know."

"Like what? Are you trying to tell me you were a commoner or something?"

"Precisely!" Derflinger exclaimed as he popped out of his sheath, eliciting a yelp from the red-haired young woman.

"What the hell?! Did that thing just speak?"

"Hey! It isn't exactly nice calling people "that thing", you know!"

"And since when exactly were you classed among 'people', Derf?" Saito asked, his eyes closed in exasperation.

"Eh… eheh, I guess I ain't them. But that doesn't change my point! This guy's as honest as they get, you won't find a more truthful man than this one here right before you. You know, if I were you, I'd claim him right now. The two of you would make quite an item if y-"

"Enough is enough!" Saito yelled as he forcefully pushed his partner back into his sheath.

"Err… alright," she stuttered stupefyingly, finding what she'd just seen a tad too hard to believe."

"Sorry, he does that all the time."

"Rrrright… so, if what you say is true, then what are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to take you to a better place, someplace where you'll earn a living and hopefully stay clear of any perverted lords… though I can't promise much about perverts in general, you won't have to do their bidding in 'that way' anymore." She raised an eyebrow at that.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

"It's a bit cold, but otherwise I'm pretty fine, thanks," he said kindly, as if she'd been honestly concerned about him.

_Maybe he's just dense…_

Shaking her head, she decided to ask another question.

"What is this place then that you're taking me to?"

"This place," he gestured at the large fort-like structure that was the Tristainian Royal Academy of Magic. While she stared at it in awe, he produced a small scroll from one of his pockets. "Here, take this. If you show it to the man in charge, I'm sure you'll find a position."

"A- ah…" she took the scroll handed to her and jumped off the wagon at his gesture.

"Well, good luck then. It was nice to meet you… Mariette, was it?" She simply nodded in affirmation, dumbfounded by the sudden turn of event. Saito smiled and bid her farewell before the convoy moved on. Not until it was gone did she move, a cold gust of wind bringing her back into reality. She then turned around and walked up to the front gate to see if it was open.

"No luck, it's locked," she snorted to herself. "Guess I'll have to wait till morning then. What an ass, leaving me out here in this cold, and in the middle of the night on top of that! Who was that anyway?" She unfurled the small scroll in her hand, her eyes bulging out at the sight of the his name, illuminated by a torch hanging beside the gate.

"Baron Saito Hiraga?!" You've got to be kidding me! Argh!" she stomped, angry at herself at having forsaken a chance with a celebrity just like that.

**THE FOLLOWING DAY**

**OUTSIDE CHÂTEAU D'HIRAGA**

**PORDENFERS, TRISTAIN**

"I can't believe he really ordered us to destroy it," Charles said to Malicorne in a morose voice, staring at the old building with a forlorn look. He looked like as if his soul would abandon him any minute.

"Don't worry, I'm sure he has some plan for it," Mal tried to console the Count. "But you know, we better get started, standing around and feeling sorry for it isn't going to make things any easier."

"I guess you're right."

At the same time not too far away, on the outskirts of the old town, the soon-to-be residents of Pordenfers got their very first glimpse of their new home. Their feelings were mixed: some were enthusiastic about coming to a new place and discovering new environs while other were simple glad over the chance to leave their own lord and start life anew; some others were less hopeful, feeling their futures uncertain in this new, wild place; some looked at it with disdain and pure contempt, thinking they had it better where they came from, feeling tricked and lied to as they gazed at the town with its many ruins and decrepit houses; then there was of course the bunch who simply didn't care either way and who never cared for pretty much anything anyway.

With the exception of the last group however, everybody's thoughts changed to that of utter despair when they saw the castle crumble and fall apart right before their eyes. Bad omen, rang the phrase in everybody's thoughts, very bad omen.

Those then who could tear their gazes away from the now nonexistent castle looked with wonder and confusion upon the man that'd led them here, who stood proudly on his carriage, sword on his back and hands on his hips, his face sporting a confident smile, his entire being radiating with this confidence in a crowd filled with despair and hopelessness, confusion and utter stupefication much like a lighthouse on a cloudy, moonless night. For a while, he merely stood like that and some of the settlers began thinking that perhaps his mind wasn't among the healthiest. Then suddenly, he spoke.

"Did you see that?!" he called out. "Did everyone see that?! That, my friends, shall be the sign of a new beginning, for you and all of us! For from those castle ruins shall you salvage the stones with which you shall build castles of your own! Never again shall you have to lead lives of slavery! In here, every notion of nobility and commoner with be void, for in here, you are all free and equal men!"

The crowd stood amazed, looking like a see of white as everyone's bulging eyes stared at the unlikely leader like he'd just come out of a spaceship. Then someone cheered, followed by a second and a third and yet another one, successively growing into a massive roar of praise and euphoria as the people hugged each other, even complete strangers, and threw their hands in the air in praise of their emancipator. Only a few did not join in on the ecstatic celebrating, knowing full well what such a radical promise entailed, and looked on instead with fear at what they felt to know would be their undoing.

Then again, there were those who simply didn't give a damn.

Having spent all night planning it however, Saito was merely relieved that it'd been received so well.

Saito lay on his bed in the tavern, unmoving and exhausted from having stayed up for so long in one go. He'd been up ever since yesterday morning and hadn't had an ounce of sleep since, so the first thing he did when he returned to his room in the night was collapse on his bed, lying on his back and trying to get some sleep. For some inexplicable reason however, it didn't seem to work, something was still keeping him awake and he had no idea what it was or why.

His mind was still full of worries over what he'd do with his newly acquired domain, but he knew that wasn't the cause of his insomnia: he'd been on the verge of falling asleep countless times on the trip back from Count Motte's lands. Neither could he think straight in any way, his senses dulled by the fatigue. As a consequence, he didn't notice a special someone sneaking into the room or even sitting down beside him. It wasn't until he felt the stroke of a hand on his cheek and heard a voice that he recognized the presence.

"How are you feeling?" Siesta asked. Saito found her voice to be ridiculously soothing, almost like a lullaby, and he had to strain himself not to fall asleep as he heard it. Sitting up on the edge of his bed, he slowly turned his head over to her and managed a tired yet delighted smile.

"Well, I've been up for 48 hours, at least if this world spins as fast as my own, so I can easily say that I've had better times" he replied groggily, his eyes locked in an unchanging squint. While Siesta couldn't make any sense of his rambling about spinning worlds, but she could understand that her unrequited love was too tired to be save any time for her.

"I see… I'll leave you be then, you probably need a lot of sleep for tomorrow."

Or so she thought.

"No! Wait… please stay." She hadn't been prepared for his hand to grab her arm as she was about to leave, her heart bounced as his fingers encircled her wrist and locked it in a strong grip, much stronger that how she remembered it from before his departure. "I could use some company," he added, not wanting to be alone. She sat back down beside him and gazed at his face, noticing how much difference all those six years had made. His features reflected that of his age: one of adulthood, yet still retaining that youthful freshness it'd had in the past, while also showing a hint of the harshness he'd had to endure during his travels. They remained as such for awhile, simply locked in each others stares, unable to pull themselves from it. She didn't dare pull her eyes from him, as if fearing that he might just disappear yet again, just like he had all those years ago.

…

…

"Why did you leave?" she suddenly asked.

"Eh?"

"Why did you leave? You didn't have to, you know? You could just have found another place to stay, anyplace! I'm… I'm sure even my family wouldn't mind… having you as a guest… it'd be an honour for a commoner to be able to host a noble anyway…"

Saito let out a long heavy sigh.

…

"I… I couldn't stand this place anymore, to be frank, Siesta. It reminded me too much of Louise, too much of Jean… too much of all that'd happened before, but most it reminded me of what I'd lost. It felt humiliating, like fate was laughing me right in my face… What more, I felt like I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't know what I would do or where to go. All the time I'd spent here up till then I'd been Louise's familiar… and that's pretty much the only purpose I had in this world, it was all my life." Siesta nodded understandingly, yet not liking what she heard at all. Surely there must have been more meaning to his life here than just being Louise's familiar, she hoped.

"And when the contract was broken, I felt so bad, even though I didn't show it. I hid it beneath the faith that if I at least was Louise's boyfriend, I would have some direction in this life, some reason to keep on living here. She'd become everything to me and then all of a sudden, it all just fell apart, like a fine porcelain vase being shattered by a sledgehammer."

"But Saito…," she hesitated, unsure if it wasn't rude to ask such a thing. But then again, how rude was it not of him to speak to her of her rival as his only point in life? "Didn't we mean anything to you?"

"Of course you did, of course! That's not what I meant, you're all wonderful people and I don't think I'd been here if it weren't for all of you. To be honest, you were among the reasons I chose to remain on this world. But…"

…

"But what?"

"But even though you were my best friends, I still wouldn't have had anything to do here without Louise. As her familiar I had a purpose in this life, a role to play, responsibilities to fulfil, I had something that would give me something to do each day instead of just loitering and wandering about aimlessly. When she cheated on me and we broke up, I lost that role. Suddenly I found myself with nothing to do, no purpose in this life, I mean…what was I supposed to do?" he rambled on, Siesta listening intently if a bit downcast, but she understood what he meant. He had no roots in this world. In the end there was nothing that tied him here but the woman who'd gone and betrayed him.

"Even you remember it, for two weeks I just sat around at the academy doing nothing; I barely talked to anyone except you. But then this one day when Reinard came and asked me if I wanted to practice with the Order of Undine Knights again, it hit me: I was still a knight! So the next day I went away to the Royal Palace and to see if there was anything they needed my help with. Louise was vehemently against sending me out on any dangerous missions, and with her being royalty and all there was nothing I could do but sit on my ass just like I did back in the academy. It wasn't until I approached the Queen and personally asked of her to send me away on that quest for artefacts. I needed to come away from here, I had to find myself, discover who I truly was and find a place for myself here now that I'd chosen to remain. Luckily, Henrietta understood that and gave me that mission, and as her authority superseded Louise's, there was nothing to stop me. I was free to go," he finished. Siesta opted to remain silent however, something clearly bothering her.

…

…

"And you didn't think about me?"

"Eh?"

"I had a purpose too, I was your personal maid, remember? Your servant. My purpose was to serve you, but with you gone, I suddenly had no one to serve. I had to go back working at the academy for six lonely years! Sure, I may've had my friends there, but it wasn't the same. I was ridiculed! People laughed at me as the useless servant whose master had abandoned her, do you know how that feels?! To be humiliated like that! And what was I supposed to do? I was only a commoner, they were nobles, I had nothing to say to them. So while you ran away on your little quest for self-discovery I was left her with my purpose taken away from me. I mean, couldn't you have taken me with you? Or at least tell me in advance? " Saito was silent, not knowing how to respond to that.

…

"I missed you…" she then mumbled.

…

"I missed you too," he replied and she looked at him with a curious expression. "And you're right, it was stupid of me to just go off like that. Already then did I realize that I should've brought you with me, but when I finally did that it was too late… I was already deep within Germania by that time. Though I can still remember it, those lonely nights and days… it wasn't always adventure and excitement as you might imagine, most of the time I spend wandering from one place to another. Especially when I crossed the Albenbergen, I felt lonelier that I have ever felt in my entire life, I didn't see another human face for several weeks. I kept thinking about you, I wanted to see you again… to be near you and I cursed myself so many times for not bringing you with me. I could really have used your company, for in all honesty, as much as my sword can talk, it can never make up for real human contact."

"Hey!" Derflinger yelled as he popped out of his sheath! "That wasn't very nice!"

"Shut up!" he yelled back, causing the loud sword to slide back into his protective scabbard.

…

"What I mean to say is, I think..." He was very tired at this moment and he wasn't fully at his senses when he said this, as he would never have dared to say it in a more sober state. "I really did miss you, Siesta, more than just simply missing human contact, more than just missing a friend. You're… of all those times, you were always the one who really cared for me and… I guess I never really appreciated it back then… not the way I learnt to while I was out wandering. I… I hope you can forgive me, Siesta, for I swear I'll never do something like that again. I love you, Siesta," he confessed and the black-haired girl felt like her heart would rocket up and out of her head at the moment. Feeling her ears burn like smouldering coal, clouding her mind, she responded by grabbing him by his shoulders and leaning in for a rapid kiss, spurred by her hitherto suppressed desires. It was something she'd yearned for since ages ago, ever since the time he'd rescued her from Count Motte.

When their mouths parted and Saito tasted his lips, trying to conserve that somewhat sweet and slightly sour yet heavenly taste he'd sensed, he felt even more tired than he did before, as if she'd applied some sort of sleeping agent to her lips. Still, his eyes managed a squinted bulge (whatever that looks like) when he realized what'd happened, looking at her extremely flushed face as if he'd just seen the ghost of his old deceased great grandmother offering him riceballs.

…

"Does that mean yes?" the dulled black-hair asked, to which Siesta responded with a nod.

"I love you too, Saito," she returned his confession, and that was all he needed before he lunged himself at her, embracing her and pressing his head to head against chest like a scared child would to his mother.

"Wah! Saito, what're you doing!" she exclaimed, startled by his sudden action. But when she didn't receive any reply she looked down only to find his sleeping face resting on her chest, using her big breasts as a pillow. When she tried moving off of the bed, his arms prevented her, holding her in place as if they were made of stone. Resigning herself not too reluctantly too her situation, she took off her boots, apron and other clothes unnecessary for sleep and crept into the bed, making sure that her newly attained prize also got under the warmth of the covers. And as she went to sleep that night, she knew that no matter what dream she'd be blessed with for the night, none would be as blissful as the one she was living in: the one great dream come true.

* * *

**Author's notes: First of all I'd like to apologize for being so ungodly slow in updating this. The reasons for this can be summed up as a mix of lots of schoolwork, laziness, games (Elder Scrolls IV) and my betareader being sick. Still, I know I should've posted this a long time ago. This here version has been proofread only once and that by myself, so if there are any errors or the like in it, blame me. Also, I'm very well aware of the fact that Jean might come across as a Mary-Sue in this chapter, but I'll assure yee all that it's nothing that'll persist throughout the story, so I'll endeavour myself to balance him out a bit more.**

**And last but certainly not least: a big thanks to all of yee who're still following this! I promise I'll not drop this, no matter what, and I'll keep updating till I've finished this, even if updates may come a little slow. I hope you all liked this chapter too. ^^**


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